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December 19, 2017

3 Ways to Make Naturally Colored Frosting

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Want to create bright, festive cookies without using synthetic food dyes? Here are three ways to make naturally colored frosting.
How to Make Naturally Colored Frosting

This post is not about making artfully decorated sugar cookies. Obviously.

I’m calling this style of cookie decorating “rustic” and “accessible”.

This is all about the colors anyway. Aren’t these colors pretty? And not a synthetic dye in sight!

Here are the three different methods I used to make them:

#1: Color Kitchen Holiday Colors: Color Kitchen makes all kinds of natural food colors. This special holiday set includes one green powder color packet and one packet of tree sprinkles. The natural colors are all derived from plants: spirulina (a kind of blue-green algae), turmeric, and grape color extract. You can find his holiday set on the Color Kitchen website or just the green color packet on Amazon.

How to Make Naturally Colored Frosting
#2: McCormick Color Nature Food Colors: This set comes with three packets–blue, pink, and yellow–with directions on the package for making other colors like green, purple, and orange. These are powdered mixes like the Color Kitchen colors, so they won’t affect the frosting’s texture. I simply mixed the blue and yellow together until I got a green I liked.

How to Make Naturally Colored Frosting

#3: Homemade Food Colors: I used my recipes for Naturally Colored Frosting using fresh beets and spinach. The green is a lighter, brighter shade than I got with the powered colors. And I was so pleased with how this red turned out! The key was putting it on the stove to simmer for 40 minutes but then forgetting about it for about an hour and a half. The longer it simmers, the deeper the color.

How to Make Naturally Colored Frosting

To mask the flavor you’d get from the spinach and beets, I recommend using a bit of almond extract or vanilla extract in your frosting recipe (if using almond extract, please be aware that some extracts are not safe for people with nut allergies). Here’s my recipe for Basic Frosting for Decorating. For a smoother finish, you can’t go wrong with Royal Icing.

Get more details on these methods and learn more about synthetic dyes on my Facebook Live (watch it here).

And here’s my favorite recipe for cut-out sugar cookies: Vanilla Cut-Out Cookies That Don’t Spread

3 ways to make naturally colored frosting for holiday cookies

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Both Color Kitchen and McCormick sent me free samples of their products to try, but I wasn’t paid to write this post. This post contains Amazon Affiliate links. If you purchase a product through these links, your cost will be the same but I will get a tiny commission to help with operating costs of this blog.

 

Hi! I'm Sally, a dietitian-mom.

I believe that EVERY mom can feel successful and confident about feeding her kids, lose the stress, and finally enjoy mealtime again.

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Filed Under: Recipes, Sweets Tagged With: baking, cookies, frosting, natural dyes, naturally colored frosting

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Kelli @ Hungry Hobby says

    December 21, 2017 at 1:30 pm

    TOTALLY GOING TO ORDER THESE! I’m not about to get beet juice and mix it into frosting, ain’t nobody got time for that ya know! Thanks for sharing!

    Reply
    • Sally says

      December 21, 2017 at 1:37 pm

      Kelli–ha! Well, the store-bought definitely do make it easy (though haven’t found a store-bought red that I like yet). Hope you love em!

      Reply
  2. Allie | Baking a Moment says

    December 21, 2017 at 5:10 pm

    Such great ideas for a more natural approach! Artificial dyes always make me a little nervous, and these colors are just gorgeous! Beautifully done, Sally!

    Reply
    • Sally says

      December 22, 2017 at 9:51 am

      Thank you Allie!

      Reply
  3. Dawn says

    December 23, 2017 at 8:13 am

    We tried the tru color natural dyes in blue and red and they work well too! They are a powder form. Thanks for the other options, we will have to check them out.

    Reply
    • Sally says

      December 23, 2017 at 8:52 am

      Thanks Dawn! I will check out the Tru colors, haven’t heard of them.

      Reply

Trackbacks

  1. No More Junk Food Ads on Channel One, Plus More Kid/Food News - The Lunch Tray says:
    December 22, 2017 at 9:22 am

    […] Mom Nutrition has some sound advice. And while you’re over there, check out her recipes for colorful holiday cookie frosting with no artificial food […]

    Reply
  2. The Sunday Skinny 12/23/17 - Skinny Fitalicious says:
    December 24, 2017 at 6:00 am

    […] 3 Ways To Make Naturally Covered Frosting – Food additives is a big no in my book. Love these alternatives! […]

    Reply
  3. Whole Wheat Cut-Out Sugar Cookies with Naturally Colored Frosting - Real Mom Nutrition says:
    December 12, 2018 at 12:21 pm

    […] the size of the beets you use and how long you steep them, you may get a dark pink or a light red. (This batch I made last year was the deepest red I’ve gotten.) If you don’t want to make your own tints, this post gives […]

    Reply

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