Blue dye at home. Natural food colors

Glossy magazines are full of pictures of mouth-watering dishes decorated with colored creams. Making a culinary masterpiece is not difficult. The ingredients for the food coloring are natural. Therefore, they are not harmful to health, unlike additives in store products.

To make red food coloring:
  1. You will need one small beetroot. Peel and grate. Place the root vegetable in a saucepan and cover it with water, close the lid. Put the broth on low heat and cook for 45-60 minutes. Add 1/2 tsp. citric acid to add richness to the color. When the broth has cooled, strain it through a sieve.
  2. Stir in currants, cherries, cranberries or raspberries. Use the resulting juice.
  3. Use tomato pulp or boil red cabbage. Also, a red tint is obtained from red paprika powder and boiled pomegranate juice.
To get yellow food coloring:
  1. Chop the saffron leaves. Transfer them to a vessel and add vodka. Use warm water for children's meals. Place the mixture in a dark place for 1 day. Strain the tincture.
  2. Grate the lemon zest. Place the mixture in cheesecloth and squeeze until juiced.
  3. Mix turmeric powder with water. The proportions depend on the desired color intensity.
Ways to make blue food coloring:
  1. Chop the red cabbage finely. Transfer it to a saucepan and simmer for 15-20 minutes over low heat. Strain the broth.
  2. Blue or purple shades give juice from blueberries, grapes or eggplants.
  3. Get indigo carmine dye from your pharmacy. It is a dark blue paste. Dissolve it in water to the desired shade.
Prepare green food coloring like this:
  1. Grind the spinach through a meat grinder or blender. Wrap the resulting mass in cheesecloth and squeeze. This will create a light green color.
  2. For a rich color, place the spinach in a saucepan and cover it with water. Simmer for 35-40 minutes.
  3. A pistachio hue will appear when mixing blue and yellow dyes.


For a bright orange color:
  1. Grate 100 g of carrots and transfer to the skillet. Fry the carrots over high heat, adding 100 g of butter. Turn off the stove after 2-3 minutes. When the mixture has cooled, squeeze it through cheesecloth. If you don't have time to cook, use store-bought carrot juice.
  2. Take the zest of an orange or tangerine and grate it on a fine grater. Next, strain the juice through cheesecloth.
To make brown food coloring at home:
  1. Mix sugar and water in a 5: 1 ratio. Fry the mixture in a skillet until dark. Stir the sugar mixture constantly with a wooden stick so that there are no lumps. Well-done sugar gives a bright brown tone. Turn off the stove, add some more water. Strain the solution through a sieve.
  2. Chocolate, coffee and cocoa powder give a pleasant chocolate shade.

Try making food coloring at home to add a touch of sophistication to your meals. Your table will be perfect for any occasion. Just remember that the shelf life of homemade food coloring is short. Better to use it right away or store it in a dark place.

This article describes how to make natural food colors.

All industrial confectionery and other products in grocery stores contain many chemical dyes. This can be seen if you look at the composition label of the product.

  • For a long time, many housewives have baked various pastries, cakes, cookies and other goodies for their households and guests.
  • But how to decorate a product so that it is original and beautiful?
  • You can add homemade food colors to creams, whipped cream, and mastic.
  • It's very simple, read all the information you need to know in this article.

How to make natural red food coloring with your own hands?

Natural food coloring is made from the juice of vegetables and fruits. To do this, you need to squeeze out the juice or just boil the grated fruit in water. For example, to make a natural red food coloring with your own hands, you will need 1 beet. Do the following:

  1. Peel the beets.
  2. Rub it on a grater board on the coarse section.
  3. Put in a saucepan, fill with water so that it slightly covers the flesh of the vegetable, and put on gas.
  4. Add a few drops of 9% vinegar, but no more than half a teaspoon.
  5. Cook for 3 minutes - no more!
  6. Strain through a strainer to remove the pulp. The juice is ready - this is a natural food paint of red color.

Add this paint to cream or dough to create a red tint.

How to make natural blue food coloring?



Blue (purple) is the color used to create cakes or other pastries. Usually confectioners paint mastic, from which the decoration for the products is made. To make natural blue food color, you need to juice the following fruits and vegetables:

  • Black or purple grapes
  • Blueberry
  • Blackberry
  • Fresh blue cabbage
  • Frozen eggplant peel

To get the dye, you need to do the following:

  1. Grind the berries in a meat grinder, finely chop the cabbage and the skin of the eggplant.
  2. Then fill with water, put on gas for 3 minutes, add a few drops of 9% vinegar.
  3. Strain and use to create a unique color.

The natural dye turns sour quickly. Therefore, it only needs to be done once and used within 2 days. It is better to store it on the bottom shelf in the refrigerator, where the temperature is lower and the air is colder.

How to make natural orange food coloring?



Orange paint is bright and juicy. A dough product decorated with this color will be appetizing and beautiful. To make natural orange food coloring, you need carrots. To get it, follow these steps:

  1. Grate the carrots on a large section of a grating board.
  2. Melt the butter in a skillet and then add the carrots. The proportion of carrots and oil is 1: 1.
  3. After 5-7 minutes, the carrots will soften and juice. You can already use it.
  4. Remove the pan from the stove and squeeze the juice out of the mass through cheesecloth.

You can also get orange dye using orange peel. Do the same with this fruit as with carrots.

How to make natural green food coloring?

Green shades are natural and juicy. They are also used to color cream and mastic. To make green natural food paint, you need to buy a bunch of spinach.

  1. Scroll the herbs through a meat grinder.
  2. Transfer the pulp to a gauze napkin and squeeze out the juice. It can already be used as a paint for confectionery masses.

If you want to get a shade of green, but more intense, then boil the juice of the spinach leaves over the fire for half an hour.

How to make natural yellow food coloring?



Yellow is the color of the sun. Not a single cake or pastry decoration is complete without it. To make natural yellow food paint, you need to buy saffron.

  1. Grind this plant in a meat grinder or through a coffee grinder if dry and dilute with a few tablespoons of warm water.
  2. Can be diluted with vodka or alcohol, but with water 1: 1.
  3. After 24 hours, strain the infusion through cheesecloth.

If you want a less intense color, then grate the lemon zest and squeeze the juice out of it. Turmeric also gives the yellow color.

How to make natural beige food coloring?

Beige is the color of naturalness. It can also be made from food and you do not have to use chemical dyes if you need to decorate the confection. To make the natural beige food coloring, pastry chefs use tomato paste. Depending on the shade, it is laid in the mass and quantity of the tomato. The more it is, the faster you will get a "dark beige", closer to orange shades. The tomato does not affect the taste of the product.

How to make natural white food coloring?

A white shade is also needed when creating confectionery, despite the fact that cream and creams prepared according to many recipes turn out to be white. To make natural white food coloring, you should use powdered milk, cream, sour cream, or even cottage cheese. Dissolve the milk powder, and stir the cottage cheese in a small amount of warm water. Then the resulting mass is wiped through a sieve and the lumps are removed.

How to make natural black food coloring?

Black and dark shades are also used to embellish individual pieces. You can create this dye at home - in your kitchen. To make natural black food coloring, the following products are used:

  • Black olives. They need to be grated and boiled in a little water. Then strain and remove the pulp.
  • Dutch Ultra cocoa... It contains a lot of chocolate and is therefore darker than regular cocoa.
  • Squid ink.

Use olives and cocoa powder to paint for sweet dishes, and squid ink for lean and salty dishes.

How to make natural purple food coloring?



Above, I described how to make a natural blue or purple food coloring using blueberries, dark grapes, or eggplant peels. Experiment and mix berry and vegetable juices to create different shades of purple or blue.

Mixing natural food colors: rules



If you plan to work as a pastry chef at home - make custom-made confectionery, then you will have a lot of food paint every day. It can be stored in the refrigerator, but no more than 2 days, and you can mix the already created shades to get new ones. For instance:

  • The color of the sea is obtained by mixing blue and green.
  • Blue and all its shades - when mixing green and red.
  • Dark (black) shades - green, blue and red.
  • Pistachio - yellow and blue.

There are rules for mixing paints. They also act on the mixing of natural food colors.



In this circle you can see what happens when you mix the primary colors.

  • For example, if you dissolve red and blue, you get purple.
  • When obtaining secondary and tertiary colors, you need to mix those colors that show the corners of the triangle of the secondary color.
  • For example, when mixing secondary green and primary yellow, you get a tertiary - yellow-green.

It's simple: look for the dyes of the desired color in your refrigerator and mix them according to the rules of this circle to get the desired shade.

How to get natural brown dye at home?

Many novice pastry chefs think that brown dye at home is obtained only with the help of cocoa. This ingredient can be used to decorate a sweet cake or pastry.

But what if the dye is needed for a salty dish? You can use coffee. It must be brewed and filtered through a sieve - the dye is ready.

Also, brown dye is made from caramel:

  • Boil the sugar with a little water in a 5: 1 ratio.
  • Heat until the mixture is brown.
  • Then remove from heat and add some water.

Important: Do not burn the sugar so that the caramel does not taste bitter.

How to get pink natural dye?



Pink food coloring is one of the most popular colors used to create cream and mastic with this shade. At the same time, a pink chemical dye is dangerous, as it can cause allergies or even bronchial asthma.

Make pink natural dye at home. You can get it from strawberries and raspberries. Scroll the berries through a meat grinder and squeeze the juice. A more delicate shade will be obtained if the juice is boiled with water.

How to get blue natural dye?

The blue tint is rarely used in jewelry, but it is still sometimes needed. To get a natural blue dye, you need red cabbage or blue cabbage. Its leaves need to be crushed and squeezed out. You can boil the crushed leaves in water for a subtle blue color.

What natural dye is best for cream, mastic, cake frosting?

When creating cream, mastic and icing for cakes, it is important that these masses are uniform in texture and color. Therefore, it is better to use a natural dye in liquid form. Vegetable or fruit juice or boiled liquid will help to make the mass beautiful in color. It should be noted that there are natural food colors that are used in food production in the preparation of various products. These include the following additives:



In addition, there are absolutely safe natural dyes. They can be divided into several types:

  • Gel- used for coloring creams, mastic and dough. Consists of glycerin and glucose.
  • Liquid- paint the cream, help to make inscriptions and drawings on the mastic using an airbrush.
  • Dry- get divorced in boiled water... Used to color dough and cream.
  • Kendurin- allows you to achieve a pearlescent shade of cream, mastic or dragee. It consists of natural silicate, which gives this effect.

Accordingly, in addition to natural juices for coloring creams, mastics and glazes, you can use gel, liquid, dry dyes and kendurin.

What natural colorant is best used for confectionery, dough, baking?



For dough products, chefs use natural dyes in the form of juices, as well as natural food gels and dry coloring powders to create confectionery products.

What is the best natural color for drinks?

If you need to make a drink of the original color, then you can add berry and fruit juice or those natural colors that are diluted with H2O. For example, natural gel, dry and liquid paints.

What is the best natural color for dyeing eggs?

All Orthodox Christians paint eggs in preparation for Easter. Previously, this was done using onion peels. Now a variety of paints are available for modern housewives.

What natural paint is best for painting eggs? Can be used both berry and fruit juices, but first you need to pour in a little vinegar. Natural dry and liquid paints are also used, which can be purchased at the grocery store.

Can brilliant green be used as food coloring?



When you need to make a mastic mass or cream on a green-colored cake, then in the summer it is easy to create it from the juice of spinach leaves. But what to do in winter, when there is no such greenery, and Easter is still far away, and food paints are not yet sold in stores? Can brilliant green be used as food paint?

Remember: Zelenka is not a food product!

But many pastry chefs use a brilliant green solution to color confectionery masses. It is enough to add just one drop of this product to get a rich green shade. This amount does not give off any foreign smell or taste.

Video: Food coloring. A simple recipe with your own hands. Red.

Natural food colors are useful not only for.

Experienced chefs have known for a long time: if you dye products (cake cream, for example) not with production "chemistry", but with dyes from natural ingredients, it will be both healthier and cheaper.

If it seemed to you that this would be a hard-to-find way to give the desired shade, then you are mistaken. It's not that hard, we'll need conventional products that you probably already have.

Look in the refrigerator or closet and check your bins for beets, carrots, spinach. Citrus fruits or some kind of red-blue berries (blackberries, blueberries, blueberries) are also useful to us. And if there is onion peel, it's generally great.

Well, with the husk everything is clear: more often just with its help we paint Easter eggs. The colors can range from light yellow to deep brown. Also yellow gives the zest of lemon or orange.

What about other colors? If we want a multi-colored cream, then we can make yellow and brown from ... burnt.

It is necessary to dilute sugar in water (in a ratio of five to one), place in a deep frying pan, put on fire and boil until dark brown. Add water in small portions to the resulting mass (5: 2). Strain this solution through cheesecloth, and you can paint eggs with such paint or add it to cream.

Blackberry or blueberry will give blue color. Red will come from raspberries, currants, cherries. But you get delicate shades of red and pink from such a natural dye as beets.

Grate it on a coarse grater, add water and boil for about an hour. Then strain it all, add a little citric acid to keep the color bright, and cool. In such water, you can keep eggs, dye fabric, or, again, decorate with it.

A natural dye like carrot will help you achieve orange hues. To do this, also grate it, fry in butter for a few minutes. Squeezing carrots through cheesecloth, you will have a natural orange dye on your hands.

The mistress's green is made from spinach, boiling it over low heat for 30-40 minutes, although its color will turn out to be rather weak. Want richer hues? Take the usual brilliant green from the first aid kit.

By the way, it’s just time to remember the lessons of art at school. By mixing different colors, you will get new shades... For example, green and yellow will give you a nice blue paint. And what is important - it will be a natural food coloring!

This way you can decorate anything, like a T-shirt.

If you look closely at the composition of many products, you can often find artificial ingredients there. Fortunately, many of them can be substituted for natural ones when cooking. The quality of the food will not change, but rather will improve. In this way, a safe natural dye can be prepared at home.

In cooked dishes, not only taste is important, but also appearance. That is why professional chefs pay special attention to their decoration. Of course, culinary specialists try most of all with desserts and sweets. Beautiful curls of cream, patterns from sprinkles are easy enough to reproduce at home, as well as to color the cakes and cream.

As dyes, it is better to use not purchased ones, but prepared with your own hands. As a result, it will turn out to be also colorful, but safer for health. Food coloring at home can be used to color creams, mastic, jelly, cakes, sauces.

Food coloring at home: cooking methods

Homemade food coloring can be obtained from a variety of vegetables and berries. To do this, juice is squeezed out of them.

The shades of pink and red are obtained from fresh or boiled beets. A small root vegetable is rubbed on a coarse grater and transferred to a saucepan. The grated beets are poured with water so that it barely covers the vegetable. Boil on low heat for 50-60 minutes. The beets are thrown through a sieve, pouring the juice into a separate container. Add citric acid to the resulting liquid at the tip of a knife - this way the color will be more resistant.

Pink shades can also be obtained from berries. Suitable for this: strawberries, raspberries, currants, cranberries. Usually they are kneaded, after which the juice is filtered through cheesecloth.

Chopped tomatoes or tomato paste are usually used to color the second courses. You can adjust the color saturation with sour cream or cream.

How to make green dye? To do this, you should stock up on spinach. It is usually sold fresh in bunches or frozen in small bags. Fresh spinach is more suitable for coloring. It must be washed, cut and put into a blender. Chop the spinach, put on cheesecloth and squeeze the juice out of it.

In a similar way, green dye is made at home from watercress. By the way, it can be used not only for desserts, but also for savory dishes. So spinach juice is used in the preparation of the traditional Chinese dish Bao Tzu. Spinach is added to a yeast dough, which is then wrapped in a salted filling. The result is green, round patties.

A delicate lilac color can be obtained from red cabbage. It is finely chopped, stewed with a little water. After that, grind with a blender and pass the juice through cheesecloth.

The added cocoa will help to color the cakes brown. It is also added to creams. Dr. the way to get a sweet brown filling is chocolate ganache. It is prepared very simply and, in fact, is a cream with which you can layer cakes and fill cakes.

For ganache, 200 ml of cream (preferably fat, from 33 percent) is heated to a boil and poured over 200 g of broken dark chocolate. The mixture is kneaded until the chocolate is completely dissolved. Chocolate ganache is left at room temperature for 40-60 minutes and then used as directed.

A different brownish tint can be obtained with fried sugar. To do this, sugar is mixed with water in a ratio of 5 to 1. The resulting mixture is heated in a small saucepan until the sugar dissolves. The mixture should turn brownish (be careful not to burn the solution, otherwise it will taste bad). The resulting solution is used for coloring desserts and sweet dishes.

The orange color is obtained from carrots. To do this, it is grated and fried in a small amount of butter until it is fully cooked. Then the carrots are filtered through cheesecloth. The resulting liquid will be the dye.

Saffron spice will also help give the dough a yellowish tint.

Sweet creams for cakes and pastries can be dyed in pastel colors using jam. For this, currants, raspberries, strawberries are suitable.

Dyes for mastic: recipes

Dyes are almost always used to create mastic jewelry. They can give color to individual pieces of fondant, from which flower meadows, decorative stripes, and various figures are then sculpted. Mostly, a commercially available concentrated food coloring is used for these purposes. Just a few drops are enough to give the mastic a rich color.

Home colors are used in a slightly different way. The fact is that for the saturation of the coloring you need to use very a large number of juice of beets, carrots and other vegetables and berries. In this case, the mastic becomes liquid and for density you need to constantly stir in powdered sugar.

Of course, you can get a bright mastic by staining with juice, but then another drawback arises - the finished figurines will taste like vegetables or berries. It turns out that homemade dyes are not quite suitable for a rich color. On the other hand, you cannot do without them if you want to give pastel shades to the paste. It only requires a little juice.

Mastic: recipe

In order for the mastic to be colored more evenly, it is better to do it yourself.

Compound:

  • American Marshmallow Marshmallow - 200 g
  • Powdered sugar -250 g
  • Lemon juice -2 cl. l.
  • Butter -2 tbsp. l.

Preparation:

  1. Put all the ingredients in one container and put in the microwave. Heat until everything is melted.
  2. From the resulting soft mass, resembling plasticine, you can immediately sculpt or pre-paint it.
  3. For coloring, it is better to divide the mastic into small portions. On small pieces, you can choose the desired shade by mixing beet, carrot, spinach juices. Having picked up the desired color, the juice is dripped onto the mastic and begins to carefully stir in and change the piece.

Dyes for mastic can be used not only for uniform coloring, but also for creating beautiful effects.

With the help of a few drops of juice, you can give the mastic a marble shade. To do this, apply a few drops of dye to the mastic in different places. Then pull it into a sausage and join the edges. Next, you should continue to add the dye and then pull out and connect the mastic. Remember to use a small amount of dye to create marble designs. Also, do not knead the fondant for a long time - you may end up with a monochromatic color.

Home-made dyes are absolutely safe and can be used to color creams, sauces, and baked goods. With their help, some tint mastic and homemade yogurt. The preparation of dyes is reduced to the fact that a juice or solution is obtained from certain products, which are then used for coloring.

If you look closely at the composition of many products, you can often find artificial ingredients there. Fortunately, many of them can be substituted for natural ones when cooking. The quality of the food will not change, but rather will improve. In this way, a safe natural dye can be prepared at home.

In cooked dishes, not only taste is important, but also appearance. That is why professional chefs pay special attention to their decoration. Of course, culinary specialists try most of all with desserts and sweets. Beautiful curls of cream, patterns from sprinkles are easy enough to reproduce at home, as well as to color the cakes and cream.

As dyes, it is better to use not purchased ones, but prepared with your own hands. As a result, it will turn out to be also colorful, but safer for health. Food coloring at home can be used to color creams, mastic, jelly, cakes, sauces.

Food coloring at home: cooking methods

Homemade food coloring can be obtained from a variety of vegetables and berries. To do this, juice is squeezed out of them.

The shades of pink and red are obtained from fresh or boiled beets. A small root vegetable is rubbed on a coarse grater and transferred to a saucepan. The grated beets are poured with water so that it barely covers the vegetable. Boil on low heat for 50-60 minutes. The beets are thrown through a sieve, pouring the juice into a separate container. Add citric acid to the resulting liquid at the tip of a knife - this way the color will be more resistant.

Pink shades can also be obtained from berries. Suitable for this: strawberries, raspberries, currants, cranberries. Usually they are kneaded, after which the juice is filtered through cheesecloth.

Chopped tomatoes or tomato paste are usually used to color the second courses. You can adjust the color saturation with sour cream or cream.

How to make green dye? To do this, you should stock up on spinach. It is usually sold fresh in bunches or frozen in small bags. Fresh spinach is more suitable for coloring. It must be washed, cut and put into a blender. Chop the spinach, put on cheesecloth and squeeze the juice out of it.

In a similar way, green dye is made at home from watercress. By the way, it can be used not only for desserts, but also for savory dishes. So spinach juice is used in the preparation of the traditional Chinese dish Bao Tzu. Spinach is added to the yeast dough, in which the salted filling is then wrapped. The result is green round pies.

A delicate lilac color can be obtained from red cabbage. It is finely chopped, stewed with a little water. After that, grind with a blender and pass the juice through cheesecloth.

The added cocoa will help to color the cakes brown. It is also added to creams. Dr. the way to get a sweet brown filling is chocolate ganache. It is prepared very simply and, in fact, is a cream with which you can layer cakes and fill cakes.

For ganache, 200 ml of cream (preferably fat, from 33 percent) is heated to a boil and poured over 200 g of broken dark chocolate. The mixture is kneaded until the chocolate is completely dissolved. Chocolate ganache is left at room temperature for 40-60 minutes and then used as directed.

A different brownish tint can be obtained with fried sugar. To do this, sugar is mixed with water in a ratio of 5 to 1. The resulting mixture is heated in a small saucepan until the sugar dissolves. The mixture should turn brownish (be careful not to burn the solution, otherwise it will taste bad). The resulting solution is used for coloring desserts and sweet dishes.

The orange color is obtained from carrots. To do this, it is grated and fried in a small amount of butter until it reaches full readiness. Then the carrots are filtered through cheesecloth. The resulting liquid will be the dye.

Saffron spice will also help give the dough a yellowish tint.

Sweet creams for cakes and pastries can be dyed in pastel colors using jam. For this, currants, raspberries, strawberries are suitable.

Dyes for mastic: options


Dyes are almost always used to create mastic jewelry. They can give color to individual pieces of fondant, from which flower meadows, decorative stripes, and various figures are then sculpted. Mostly, a commercially available concentrated food coloring is used for these purposes. Just a few drops are enough to give the mastic a rich color.

Home colors are used in a slightly different way. The fact is that for the richness of coloring, you need to use a very large amount of juice of beets, carrots and other vegetables and berries. In this case, the mastic becomes liquid and for density you need to constantly stir in powdered sugar.

Of course, you can get a bright mastic by staining with juice, but then there is another drawback - the finished figurines will taste like vegetables or berries. It turns out that homemade dyes are not quite suitable for a rich color. On the other hand, you cannot do without them if you want to give pastel shades to the paste. It only requires a little juice.

Making mastic: a simple recipe

In order for the mastic to be colored more evenly, it is better to do it yourself.

Compound:

  • American Marshmallow Marshmallow - 200 g
  • Powdered sugar -250 g
  • Lemon juice -2 cl. l.
  • Butter -2 tbsp. l.

Preparation:

  1. Put all the ingredients in one container and put in the microwave. Heat until everything is melted.
  2. From the resulting soft mass, resembling plasticine, you can immediately sculpt or pre-paint it.
  3. For coloring, it is better to divide the mastic into small portions. On small pieces, you can choose the desired shade by mixing beet, carrot, spinach juices. Having picked up the desired color, the juice is dripped onto the mastic and begins to carefully stir in and change the piece.

Dyes for mastic can be used not only for uniform coloring, but also for creating beautiful effects.

With the help of a few drops of juice, you can give the mastic a marble shade. To do this, apply a few drops of dye to the mastic in different places. Then pull it into a sausage and connect the edges. Next, you should continue to add the dye and then pull out and connect the mastic. Remember to use a small amount of dye to create marble designs. Also, do not knead the fondant for a long time - you may end up with a monochromatic color.