Very often we surf the Internet, looking for this or that recipe, and we come across very beautiful photos of cookies and cakes decorated with colorful bouquets, salads with original unusual colored decorations, and we cannot even imagine that all these food colors can be made at home without problems independently, using only natural high-quality products.
We all know the damage synthetic dyes can cause. What to do? After all, you really want to decorate our dishes and thus make them more appetizing? There is a way out, colored decorations for the cake can be prepared at home using only natural food colors. Yes, maybe it will be slightly different from the bright and beautiful store-bought cakes, but at the same time you can be sure that it will be very tasty and, most importantly, healthy.
If you want to please your homemade dishes with a bright design, then try using simple recipes for making various food colors at home.
Yellow food coloring
To get yellow you need to use saffron. To do this, it is crushed and diluted with warm water (or vodka), and after a day it is filtered. This infusion can act as a yellow natural dye. The yellowing effect can also be achieved with the help of ordinary lemon peel, which is rubbed on a fine grater, transferred to cheesecloth and squeezed out of juice.
Orange food coloring
Of course, carrots can give orange color. You can take fresh carrot juice. Some people grate the carrots on a coarse grater and fry them in butter in a 1: 1 ratio. After a few minutes, the carrots should soften and the oil should turn orange. The pan is removed from the stove and cooled. After that, the mass is placed in cheesecloth and wrung out. Orange peel also gives orange color. The manipulation is similar to the manipulation of lemon zest.
Red food coloring and shades
The red and pink color is obtained from the juices of berries, namely strawberries, raspberries, cranberries, dogwood, currants, lingonberries, various red syrups, jam and red wine. Shades of red can also be obtained from red peppers, dark red tomatoes, red cabbage, boiled pomegranate juice, and sweet paprika powder.
Beetroot is a powerful food coloring. To prepare a dye from it, beets are peeled, rubbed on a coarse grater, poured with water and cooked over low heat for an hour under a covered lid. To give the color brightness, a pinch of citric acid is added to the broth. After that, the broth is cooled and filtered.
Green food coloring
The green food color is usually spinach. To do this, it is rubbed through a sieve or passed through a meat grinder, the pulp is wrapped in cheesecloth and the juice is squeezed out. To obtain a different shade of green, spinach juice is boiled for 30 - 40 minutes over low heat, until the color becomes intensely green.
Blue and purple food coloring
You can get blue and purple dye from blueberry juice. Boiled or fresh red cabbage, frozen eggplant skin juice, blackberry juice and grape juice also give this color.
Brown food coloring
Brown color gives caramel. For this, sugar is diluted with water in a ratio of 5 to 1, placed in a pan and put on low heat. Heat until the mass turns dark brown, then remove from heat and stir, adding water. When performing this procedure, the main thing is not to overcook the sugar, as this can lead to the formation of bitterness. The resulting solution is filtered. The brown color also gives strong coffee or cocoa powder and chocolate.
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:- 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.
- Stir in currants, cherries, cranberries or raspberries. Use the resulting juice.
- Use tomato pulp or boil red cabbage. Also, a red tint is obtained from red paprika powder and boiled pomegranate juice.
- 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.
- Grate the lemon zest. Place the mixture in cheesecloth and squeeze until juiced.
- Mix turmeric powder with water. The proportions depend on the desired color intensity.
- Chop the red cabbage finely. Transfer it to a saucepan and simmer for 15-20 minutes over low heat. Strain the broth.
- Blue or purple shades give juice from blueberries, grapes or eggplants.
- Get indigo carmine dye from your pharmacy. This paste is dark of blue color... Dissolve it in water to the desired shade.
- Grind the spinach through a meat grinder or blender. Wrap the resulting mass in cheesecloth and squeeze. This will create a light green color.
- For a rich color, place the spinach in a saucepan and cover it with water. Simmer for 35-40 minutes.
- A pistachio hue will appear when mixing blue and yellow dyes.
- 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.
- Take the zest of an orange or tangerine and grate it on a fine grater. Next, strain the juice through cheesecloth.
- 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.
- 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.
Natural plant dyes
Today, for dyeing wool, threads or any fabric, if desired and the availability of money, you can purchase aniline dye almost any color. And nowadays they turn less and less to the aid of vegetable dyes with which our ancestors for many centuries successfully used to color fabrics (from flax, cotton and other natural fibers) and leather. Although even now, certain vegetable dyes continue to be used in the manufacture of carpets and for dyeing food. In fact, most plants contain dyes, however, only those plants are classified as dyes, the content of dyes in which is sufficiently high, and the latter should provide persistent coloration.
What kind of plants is it advisable to use at home as a starting material for the preparation of natural vegetable dyes? For now, we will list only a few of them.
So, sand color will help to get ordinary tea, as well as spruce cones. Yellow color will be provided by yellow poplar, calendula, onion husks, heather, St. John's wort, celandine, meadowsweet (meadowsweet), fresh wild rosemary sprouts, alder and ash bark, birch leaves.
Gray dye contains oak and alder bark (black and gray), as well as birch bark. Brown color will give bast, wild apple leaves, onion husks (high concentration solution), willow bark, mountain ash, aspen, spruce. Green dye "is" in birch leaves, hay dust, tansy, potato and carrot tops, stems and leaves of tomatoes. Red color will be provided by the roots of bedstraw, St. John's wort, celandine, buckthorn bark. Black dye is obtained from sorrel and St. John's wort, black alder bark, reed roots, dried bean stalks left after harvest.
Usually, during the staining process, they fix it by adding one or another chemical (copper sulfate, vinegar, alum, etc.).
Technology for the preparation of natural plant dyes
Now let's dwell in more detail on the technology for preparing coloring solutions from the most common plants. I draw your attention to the fact that the dyeing solutions, the recipes for which are given below, are designed for dyeing 100 g of yarn. Moreover, for dyeing every 100 g of yarn, it is necessary to have 3 ... 4 liters of solution.
Spruce cones (young and old) are used for dyeing in a sandy color. You will need 1500 g of cones and 20 g of alum (about the latter a little later). The cones are finely crushed and boiled for 4 hours. The broth is filtered and alum is dissolved in it. In this solution, the yarn is kept for about 30 minutes at a temperature close to the boiling point. If a darker tone is desired, a little copper sulfate is added to the solution and the processing of the yarn is continued at the same temperature for another half hour.
Bright yellow dye is obtained from fresh leaves. For 500 g of birch leaves, take 20 g of alum. Fresh leaves are boiled for 1 hour. Dry leaves are first soaked for a day, after which they are boiled for 3 ... 4 hours. The broth is filtered, the yarn is dipped into it and brought almost to a boil. In this mode, the yarn is processed for about 1 hour, stirring the skeins from time to time. Then add alum to the solution and continue the "heat treatment" for another 30 minutes.
Onion peel
To prepare orange paint, 400 g of husks are soaked for 7 hours. Then the liquid is filtered and the yarn is immersed in it, where the latter is kept for 2 hours, stirring occasionally, at a temperature as close as possible to the boiling point. To get a dark yellow color, you need twice as much onion husk (800 g), and you also need alum (15 g). The onion broth is boiled for 3 ... 4 hours, filtered, alum and yarn are put in it. Dyeing is carried out for about 1 hour at a temperature close to the boiling point.
Marsh wild rosemary
On the basis of this plant, it is possible to obtain coloring solutions of different colors. For example, to dye the yarn in a sandy color, 500 g of marsh rosemary twigs are soaked for a day. Then the infusion is heated to almost boiling point, skeins of yarn are dipped into it and kept there for 4 hours, maintaining the same temperature. If you add 1 teaspoon of salt to this broth, then the yarn will become scarlet.
To create green paint, 400 g of marsh rosemary and 15 g of potassium dichromate are taken. The skeins of yarn are first kept for 2 hours in a solution of the latter at a temperature close to the boiling point, then dried. The marsh rosemary itself is boiled for 3 ... 4 hours, dried yarn is dipped into a cooled solution, the solution is brought to a boil, after which this temperature is maintained for about an hour. Then the solution is cooled, the yarn is taken out, rinsed in clean water and dried. A gray-brown color will provide the yarn with 400 g of wild rosemary and 15 g of alum. The yarn is first immersed in a solution of alum and brought to a boil (but not allowed to boil). Processing yarn in solution lasts half an hour. The wild rosemary is boiled for 3 ... 4 hours, after which the broth is filtered and the yarn is put into it, the broth is brought to a boil, maintaining a similar regime for 1 hour.
Nettle deaf
Nettle dyes the yarn in a pleasant sandy color. For 500 g of dried nettle, you need 19 g of alum. First, alum is dissolved in water and the yarn is “processed” for some time in a solution heated to almost boiling. Nettle is soaked for 3 ... 4 hours, boiled, the broth is filtered and yarn, pretreated with alum, is put into it. Bring the broth to a boil and continue dyeing the yarn at this temperature for 1 hour. Then the broth with the yarn is cooled, the yarn is rinsed and dried.
Collecting plants-dyes is carried out during the period when more dye is contained in the "coloring" parts of the plants. For example, the leaves are harvested in the spring (after their full disclosure), the flowers - immediately after the buds open. The roots are dug up either in the spring (shortly before the flowering of the plants) or in the fall. Many plants retain their optimal coloring ability all summer long (stems and leaves of tomatoes, carrots, potatoes, sorrel, celandine, St. John's wort, cuff).
Plants are harvested in dry weather and dried in the shade in a draft. The dried plants are crushed and stored in a dry place in cloth or plastic bags.
As the above-mentioned fixers for dyeing, use is made of aluminum or potassium chromium alum (crystalline hydrates of double sulfate salts), copper sulfate and iron sulfate.
Alum is a white powder, it is used for coloring in "light" colors (yellow, gray, scarlet). Copper sulfate, the crystals of which have a blue-green color, serves to obtain dark: yellow, green and brown colors. Iron sulfate (yellow-green crystals) is used as a fixer for brown, green or red-brick paints.
Table salt is also a fixer, which is necessary when dyeing cotton fabrics. The presence of salt in the dyeing of the coat is not necessary. But vinegar as a fixative is used when dyeing fabrics, threads, yarns of one kind or another. Usually, products painted with natural plant dyes do not fade. But it happens that in the sun their color fades. By the way, the color may change when washing colored items with detergent, especially when washing in hot water. For example, in this case, the blue may turn into khaki. When washed with soap, the color of dyed woolen garments remains unchanged.
Generalized information about dyeing plants and features of their use are given in the table.
Plants used for dyeing, the timing of their collection, the fixing agents used, the colors obtained
| The plant and its coloring part | Collection time | Applied fixers | Received color |
|---|---|---|---|
| Birch (leaves) | First half of summer | Potassium dichromate (after dyeing) | Olive |
| Linden (fallen leaves) | Autumn | Copper sulfate (before dyeing) | Yellow |
| Maple (fallen leaves) | Autumn | Iron sulfate (before dyeing) | Dark red |
| Aspen (fallen leaves) | Autumn | Copper sulfate (before dyeing) Potassium dichromate (after dyeing) Iron sulfate (before and after dyeing) |
Brown Green Grey |
| Aspen (earrings) | Spring (before the leaves bloom) | Iron sulfate (after dyeing) |
Brown Black |
| Spruce (needles, young and old cones) | Spring | Copper sulfate (before and after dyeing) Alum (before and after dyeing) |
Green Sand, brown, yellow |
| Wild apple tree (fallen leaves) | Autumn | Copper sulfate (before and after dyeing) Potassium dichromate (before dyeing) |
Yellow with brown tint Dark crimson |
| Bird cherry (ripe and overripe berries) | Summer | Without fixer Copper sulfate (before dyeing) |
Red Yellow |
| Pomegranate (peel) | Autumn | Copper sulfate (after dyeing) | Black with brown tint |
| Sorrel (roots, leaves) | Spring | Alum (before dyeing) | Yellow |
| Oregano (top of the plant) | When blooming | Without fixer Copper sulfate (before dyeing) Potassium dichromate (after dyeing) |
Scarlet Green |
| Potatoes (top of the plant) | After cleaning | Iron sulfate (before and after dyeing) Iron sulfate (before dyeing) |
Dark green Black with brown tint |
As a rule, visitors to restaurants and cafes pay attention not only to the taste of the dishes served, but also to how they are decorated. Therefore, the chefs try to decorate this or that dish as best as possible. Most of the attention in this case is paid to sweets and desserts. At home, you can also create various patterns from cream and sprinkles.
Your best bet is to learn how to make food coloring at home rather than buying it from the store. The result will be no worse, moreover, it is not dangerous to health. This homemade dye is used to color sauces, jellies, mastic, cream and more.
What are food colors?
Food colors are both synthetic and natural. In turn, synthetic are divided into liquid, dry and gel. diluted in a small amount of liquid to give the dish the desired shade.
Powdered dyes are diluted boiled water, alcohol or vodka, and, if desired, applied to baked goods in a dry form. Protein mass for creating patterns and creams, as a rule, are colored with liquid dyes. They are often used in airbrushes or sugar mastic as a substitute for water.
Liquid food coloring is very similar to gel color, but the latter is thicker and more concentrated. It is used in the coloring of creams (only non-protein ones), glaze, mastic and dough. With the help, you can create both delicate shades and rich and bright colors.
How to get natural red dye
Such a dye can be obtained using the juice of berries, fruits and vegetables that contain a red color, it can be:
- beet;
- Strawberry;
- currant;
- pomegranate and other food.
But red food coloring can be obtained from more than just fruits, try using dark red tomatoes, red peppers, and paprika powder for this purpose. Nevertheless, the most beautiful color comes from beets.
You can get red dye from beets as follows:
- Thoroughly wash the root vegetable under running water, peel, and then grate. Pour water over the beets. You don't need a lot of liquid, it should only cover the grated vegetable. Put on low heat and simmer for an hour.
- Please note that the pot must be covered with a lid. Add a little citric acid (1/2 teaspoon) to the broth, this will prevent it from fading. After cooling down, the red food coloring should be drained and then used.
How to make black food coloring
Black food coloring can be obtained in several ways:
- The first way. Mix five drops of purified glycerin with an activated charcoal tablet.
- The second way is how to make black food coloring at home. Black can be obtained by mixing several colors of artificial dyes. For example, take red, yellow, and blue food colors and mix thoroughly - you end up with black.
- The third way is how to make black food coloring at home. Take the cuttlefish ink. They are quite easy to get lately, they are sold in almost every large hypermarket. But despite the fact that the ink has practically no taste, there is still a certain specific taste, and therefore it is not recommended to use such a black food coloring for mastic or other sweet dishes.
How to make egg dye
Yellow food coloring (recipe): Add turmeric (3 tablespoons) to the boiling vinegar solution. Remember that turmeric stains the skin quite strongly, so be sure to wear rubber gloves before using this dye to protect your hands from staining.
Pink: Chop 4 cups raw beets and add them to the egg bowl. If the eggs at first seem to you not pink, but brown, do not be discouraged. Once dry, they will turn into a pleasant pastel shade.
To make food colors for blue eggs, add 3 cups of chopped purple or red cabbage to the solution. For the eggs to turn blue, they should be kept in the solution for half an hour. If you want to achieve a blue color, then put the eggs in the refrigerator and let them sit there in the solution all night.
Orange color: Onion skins (four cups) give the eggs a beautiful orange tint. To get a brighter color, then, as in the previous case, without removing the eggs from the dye, leave them in the refrigerator overnight.
DIY silvery food coloring: Place 2 cups of frozen blueberries in a container and add 2 cups of clean water to it. Wait for the mixture to warm to room temperature, then crush the berries. Let them stand a little longer, then strain the solution. Place the Easter eggs in the dye and refrigerate until morning.
Beige dye
To make a beige DIY food coloring, you should use tomato paste. The color saturation depends on the amount of this product, for example, if you add a lot of tomato to the cream, then it will become more orange than beige. Tomato paste does not change the taste of the dessert.
If you have prepared several different natural dyes in advance, then if you wish, you can create new colors from them. To do this, you just need to mix the existing ones. For example, to get aquamarine, you should mix two dyes: green and blue, and for a blue tint, add green to red. Mixing red, blue and green produces black. A beautiful pistachio shade can be achieved by mixing blue and yellow dyes.
Yellow
To color a dish yellow, chefs most often use lemon. Lemon zest is rubbed on a fine grater, and then juice is squeezed out of it, which turns into a liquid food coloring. Turmeric dissolved in warm water also gives a beautiful yellow tint.
Green color
Fresh spinach is most commonly used to achieve a rich green color. It is crushed in a meat grinder or rubbed through a sieve. Then the mixture is boiled for 30 minutes, after which it is filtered.
Blue and purple colors
These colors can be obtained from blueberries, dark grapes, or eggplant skins. You can also use purple cabbage for this purpose, which is pre-cut and boiled. With sugar, you can get a brown color. To do this, sugar is mixed with water (5: 1) and placed in a frying pan. Make a small fire and fry the sugar, remembering to stir it constantly. Gradually, the mixture begins to turn brown. Add some more water to it and strain. In addition to sugar, brown can be obtained using cocoa, coffee or chocolate.
Why are artificial colors harmful?
Today produced a large number of artificial colors that are used to make dishes look attractive. But it is not always known what exactly is included in the composition of these synthetic dyes. It often happens that their composition can only be determined through long-term laboratory tests.
Manufacturers are not always ready to comply with standards, and often hazardous components in dyes exceed the permissible content. They can not only cause allergies in people, but also have a negative effect on nervous system, cause oxygen starvation and, worst of all, provoke the formation of tumors. Therefore, it is better not to consume such products at all, but instead learn how to make food coloring at home.
Conclusion
There are two types of food colors: synthetic and natural. The first of them are most often made from chemical ingredients, so it is wiser to give preference to natural ones. Natural food colors are made from plant ingredients (usually fruits and vegetables).
You can create such dyes yourself at home and use them to decorate all kinds of dishes.
Color food product- this is what contributes to the growth of its attractiveness among buyers, and also affects the taste perception of food and human digestion in general. Natural food colors are added to a variety of creams to make cakes and other pastries look beautiful.
During the production process, it is very often necessary to restore the color of the product, which may have changed slightly during heat treatment. For this purpose, two types of dyes are usually used: natural or artificially created. Even natural food colors are very complex organic compounds that are not always 100% safe for human health.
Types of dyes
In addition, food colors obtained from natural products look less attractive and require a lot more resources to make them. To use these supplements successfully, you need to be familiar with all of their features.
Depending on the consistency, they are all divided into the following groups:
- ... Powdered. They are diluted in alcohol or water, you can use them directly in dry form. Typically, these natural food colors are used to color the mastic.
- ... In liquid form. They are used to paint creams and pastes.
- ... Gel. Almost identical to liquid, but at the same time they have a much higher concentration. Therefore, it is very economical and convenient to use them, because you can get both a rich color and delicate shades.
Why are natural dyes used?
These substances have vegetable origin and they are obtained as a result of digestion (or other methods) from plants, berries, rhizomes, etc. Natural food colors can be made at home, while they differ in some biological activity, which cannot be said about synthetic ones. They do not affect the assimilation of the product by the body, the same can be said about the taste.
The only thing that changes with the use of these additives is the color of the product, which becomes brighter and more attractive. Natural blue food coloring or additives of a different color are added to the dish immediately after the product has been cooked and cooked to restore its former attractiveness. You can also get such a supplement artificially: beta-carotene is a prime example of this.
Isolated from carrots or obtained synthetically, it has the same structure, chemical structure and characteristics. Dry food natural dyes Parfait or from other manufacturers can be purchased in the store, reviews about them are mostly positive. Thanks to the development of technologies, it will not be difficult to obtain a natural black food coloring, because the properties of the coloring pigment and the level of its content are set initially.
The only contraindication to the use of such substances in food is the individual intolerance of the component in a particular person. For other people, natural dyes are not harmful, which cannot be said about synthetic ones. According to research, the latter can even cause the development of cancerous tumors.
Getting dyes at home
Is it realistic to create a dye from the products that are in every refrigerator? To obtain a natural green food coloring, you need spinach, which must be rubbed through a sieve and squeezed out with gauze. Whole spinach leaves can be simmered with a little water. It is necessary to cook the mixture for at least 40 minutes, until it acquires a rich green hue.
Natural red food coloring can be obtained from berries, cherry juice, jam and various syrups (infusions). For this purpose, you can use bell peppers, tomatoes and even paprika. Of all these products, beets have the most pronounced coloring features. It is washed, carefully crushed and poured with a small amount of water.
The mixture should be boiled for at least an hour under a closed lid and over low heat. To prevent the resulting broth from oxidizing, a little citric acid is added to it. After it has completely cooled down, the paint can already be used for confectionery or other dishes, because the additive will not affect their taste.
Many housewives are interested in how to make natural food colors in order to minimize the harm that various synthetic substances bring to family members. To get an orange color, you need to prepare some washed and peeled carrots. It is crushed and poured into a frying pan. Butter melted in a water bath is added there (by volume - about the same as carrots), and everything is fried for about 10 minutes.
The carrots soften and the melted butter takes on a pleasant orange tint. Next, you need to let the carrots cool, then strain the oil through cheesecloth and the dye is ready for use. Fresh carrot juice can also serve as a source of orange color, which must be drained to remove vegetable particles. You can even use orange peel.
Natural food coloring yellow color do it yourself from saffron. The spice is simply diluted with a small amount of vodka or warm water and left for a day. After this period, the infusion is filtered and the result is a decent dye that will be completely harmless. It is very easy to squeeze the yellow juice out of a small quality lemon peel with gauze, if you need very little coloring matter for your dish.