Plant-Based Food Coloring Ideas for Spooky Season Treats
When it comes to making baked goods look amazing, the more vibrant the color, the better. That’s true in almost every case, but particularly at Halloween where the spooky season lends itself to ideas of vibrant, ghostly, other-worldly colors. While store-bought food dyes have been our go-to source to produce these wild colors, there are a whole host of other plant-based, natural sources for food dyes that produce results just as vibrant and spectacular.
Below are some colors you can produce at home using readily-available plants and baking ingredients.
Black
We start, of course, with the color of a moonless night: black. There are multiple ways to create black, though not all will produce the same results. Coffee or black tea, for instance, can produce a dark-brown color, or dark grey that might do nicely in frostings. Either brew a fresh pot of coffee or some black tea and use a teaspoon in your frosting to get the right color. Of if you’re adding to other dry ingredients, use some expresso powder. The color might be just what you’re looking for, and the flavor will be fantastic too!
For that full, deep, saturated black though, you’ll want an ultra-Dutched, black cocoa powder. This isn’t your usual cocoa powder you find in the store, but one that’s highly bittersweet. Use this
Red is perhaps one of the more important Halloween colors. Whether used to depict blood, Dorothy’s famous shoes, or the color of a devil for a devil cake, it’s a prime Halloween color that shouldn’t go missed. It’s also one of the simpler colors to make at home, using nothing other than beets.
Beets are famous for their vibrant color. For a vegetable that looks remarkably dull from the outside, its juice creates a vibrant color that no other plant can mimic. You can either cook them yourself in boiling water and strain the liquid, or take canned beets and play around with the liquid from the can.
But if beets really aren’t what you’re after, there’s another, sweeter alternative. If your store has strawberry powder, mix a couple teaspoons in with a few tablespoons of water (how much will depend on the depth of color you’re after). If strawberry powder isn’t available, take some freeze-dried strawberries and mash them with a mortar and pestle.
If red is an important Halloween color, orange is right behind it. As one of the pinnacle season colors, you’ll want a vibrant orange, one that can be produced by none other than carrots.
You can use a juicer if you have one, but the better method (the one that will give you the most vibrant color of orange) would be to chop and boil some carrots. Cook until they’re fork tender, then put them in a blender with only a tiny bit of water. Strain the puree through a sieve and let cool before you use in any frostings or cookie mixes.
Pink is a perfectly achievable color via a number of methods. Raspberries are probably the simplest way to achieve the color. Mix 2 cups’ worth of raspberries with a ¼ cup of water and boil on the stove for 5 minutes. Mash with a potato masher and strain the liquid. Return the strained liquid to the stove and cook until thickened.
Red cabbage can also produce the pink color you desire. Boil the red cabbage on the stove and strain the liquid. This will give you a purple color, but add some lemon juice to lighten the color into pink.
It might seem impossible to create the color blue from plants. But in fact, it’s rather easy. All you need is some red cabbage and a little baking soda. Boil some chopped red cabbage until the simmering liquid begins to turn purple. Strain the liquid and put it back on the stove to cook until it thickens (another 15 - 20 minutes). Slowly add a ¼ tsp of baking soda at a time until you get the right color blue you’re after. (Caution: a little baking soda goes a long way. Don’t use too much, or else it will affect the flavor of your bakes).
Red cabbage will also come in handy if you want a vibrant purple color for an epic Purple People Eater cookie. Boil the cabbage the same way you would for blue color dye (see above), but don’t add any baking soda. Simply let the strained liquid thicken on the stove.
Blueberries can also be a great way to make natural purple dye. First blend a batch of blueberries until you have a smooth liquid. Strain it, and boil the strained liquid on the stove until thickened.
If your zombie cookies or cakes need to be just the right shade of green, then undoubtedly you’ll need some green food dye. Thankfully, there are multiple ingredients that can produce this color.
For a light green color, consider spinach. By boiling 2 cups of spinach leaves with 1 cup water. Once cooked, blend it all until it becomes a paste.
For a more vibrant, powerful green color that’s also a bit simpler, consider matcha powder. This can easily blend in with a white buttercream, so you don’t have any straining or additional cooking to do.
Finally, spirulina powder can also provide a good green. Both a health food as well as an algae powder, spirulina can produce a green-blue color that could be just what you’re looking for in an evil mermaid or merman bake. Add the powder directly to your frosting to make it easy. (A word of caution: spirulina does have a bit of an aftertaste, so be cautious with how much you add).
One of the simpler colors to make from home, yellow can easily be made with water and a bit of turmeric. Turmeric is a spice often found in Indian and other south Asian cuisines. You can almost always tell when a curry has turmeric in it, because its color is remarkably yellow.
You’ll only need a little to achieve a color worthy for your bakes. Add this to some liquid and boil it on a stove until you achieve the desired thickness.
If turmeric somehow isn’t available, a more expensive option would be to use saffron. Though saffron threads are red, they produce a yellow liquid when boiled in water. (This is why paellas are yellow in color). You’ll only need about ¼ tsp boiling in water to produce a yellow liquid. Boil as you would above with turmeric, until you achieve the right consistency and thickness.