Be it frosting, icing, or batter, the right food coloring can add vibrant, bold, and consistent hues to your products. Most food-grade dyes contain titanium dioxide for a brilliant white shade.
Food coloring comes in liquid, gel, and powder forms; each has advantages and disadvantages regarding ease of use, vibrancy, and texture effects.
Table of Contents
Liquid
Liquid gel food coloring offers crisp white hues for buttercreams and royal icings with its water-soluble formula, perfect for buttercreams and royal icings alike. Ideal for nearly all applications except chocolate, which requires fat-based colors to avoid seizing and curdling, use as few or many drops as desired for light tints or bolder hues – the convenient squeeze bottle makes dispensing precise amounts easy! Freeze stable with minimal fading or bitter aftertaste; ideal alone or to lighten other food colorings! The gallon size provides 128 fluid ounces of high-quality face made in the USA!
Gel
Gel food colorings are more concentrated than their liquid counterparts, requiring less to achieve vivid hues. Its greater concentration makes it easier for thick applications like royal icing. White food coloring is commonly used with this white food color option but for applications where chemical make-up of ingredients (like macarons) or intense colors are paramount ( like royal icing).
Titanium dioxide provides this food coloring with its signature bright white hue by effectively reflecting light off it and helping it bounce off in all directions. A popular component in sunscreen, titanium dioxide has no adverse health impacts when consumed in moderation – making it suitable for most recipes and making this food coloring versatile enough for everyday use.
Add this gel food coloring to frostings, cakes, cookies, and Easter egg dyeing processes for an array of delicious meals! Additionally, lighten other food colors for deeper shades.
Food coloring made without artificial ingredients is one of the main draws to this product, especially if you are concerned about its effects on your digestive tract. As this gel-based food color works well in most recipes, heating small portions of butter-based icing before whisking in this gel can help it emulsify more effectively and prevent future separation.
Powder
If you’re searching for food coloring that excels in fat-based products, this oil-soluble white powder might be your perfect match. It quickly melts into chocolate, cocoa butter, and other rich food items without creating ripples of discoloration, with its variety of sizes making it easy to incorporate into dry ingredients for baking purposes. Plus, it contains Titanium Dioxide for natural whitening without using chemical bleaching agents, all while being food-safe.
Ideal for tinting chocolate and dry mixes where water is prohibited, such as sugar paste, royal icing, macaroons, fondant, and meringues, it can also be used to paint on hard candy such as marbled effect or fine lines of color using toothpick. You could even use it like those little colored clouds seen during Color Runs!
Food colorings from Sargent Foodcolors come in various hues and are highly flexible. Use it to lighten other hues for a desired shade, or add small quantities for increased brightness in white icing and chocolate treats. Formulated without artificial colors or FD&C dyes and certified Circle U-approved for kosher foods, this food coloring boasts an 18-month shelf life and is gluten-, vegan-, and dairy-free.
DIY
Natural food coloring offers an ideal alternative to store-bought varieties. Made with fresh ingredients and available in various shades, raw food colors often boast more incredible vibrancy than their petroleum-based counterparts and can even be used with airbrush dispensers for convenient application.
Natural colorants generally tend to produce subdued hues in comparison with their petroleum-laden counterparts, mainly due to ratios – vegetable dyes tend to have less pigment per volume compared with liquid coloring available for purchase from stores, making vivid shades challenging to achieve in recipes that do not allow for large volumes of liquid colors.
Consideration must also be given to the flavor these dyes will add, though their flavor won’t necessarily stand out. However, remember that stains tend to add a more robust taste than an addition such as paprika or turmeric would.
Although these drawbacks exist, many recipes requiring white food coloring can still be successfully colored using homemade natural dyes. Beet juice (which also provides red, pink, or purple hues) combined with lemon juice to keep its vibrancy. Other popular choices are paprika, turmeric, chlorophyll, matcha powder, and red cabbage juice as an easy and natural dye option.
