All the colors you need to decorate The BEST Egg-Free Sugar Cookies are not found in a small bottle in your kitchen cabinet, but right outside your door. At the market or in your garden, you can find all of the colors of the rainbow in fruits and vegetables, baby! And yes, we’re using them to color our icing… Isn’t nature great?!
First, let’s talk WHY and then HOW.
WHY should we color our icing naturally?
On the most basic level, it’s just better for you! When it comes to natural vs. artificial…natural wins EVERY time. No doubt you’ve heard the debates in the media surrounding artificial food coloring. My top reasons for avoiding them?
- “Artificial food colorings were originally manufactured from coal tar…Today, most synthetic food dyes are derived from petroleum, or crude oil” (American Chemical Society) What?!
- There is mounting evidence that artificial food dyes are linked to hyperactivity in children, which isn’t too surprising seeing as though SO many foods that use these dyes are marketed to and consumed by children. (The Center for Science in the Public Interest)
- Some artificial food dyes, like Red #3, are known carcinogens… KNOWN to cause cancer …and yet, they’re still in our food products. Other dyes have also been found to be contaminated with carcinogens. (National Institutes of Health) Yikes.
I have WAY too much to say about artificial food dyes…for another post, coming soon.
So, HOW do you color icing naturally?
Prepare your favorite icing recipe (my favorite is simply powdered sugar, vanilla extract and milk). Where you would add milk or water, just add a small amount (1-2 tablespoons) of fruit puree (seeds strained) or vegetable juice to your icing or frosting recipe. It’s that simple!
Here are the colors I’ve tried…
- Light pink – Strawberry puree (strain through a fine mesh strainer to remove any seeds)
- Dark pink – Raspberry puree (strain through a fine mesh strainer to remove any seeds)
- Yellow – Mango puree
- Green – Spinach juice (blend spinach and a small amount of water together)
- Purple – Blueberry puree (strain through a fine mesh strainer to remove any seeds/skin)
- Orange – Raspberry and mango purees mixed together
A few other produce items that I’ve seen used as natural food colorings include: beets (both red and yellow), red cabbage (purple), carrots (orange), and spices like paprika and turmeric (yellow and orange). The only color I haven’t quite mastered yet is blue, although I’ve heard rumblings about boiling red cabbage and adding some baking soda for a bright, vibrant blue? More experiments needed…I’ll report back.
Naturally colored icing spreads just as easily and consistently as icing that has been dyed with artificial food coloring. And as a bonus, the icing dyed with fruit puree boasts a little extra fruity flavor.
The finished product? See for yourself!
Little Hands Can…
- Measure out the powdered sugar, vanilla and fruit/vegetable puree
- Mix the ingredients together
- Decorate the cookies
- 1-2 tablespoons fruit puree or vegetable juice (I've used strawberry, raspberry, mango, blueberry purees and spinach juice)
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- ¼ teaspoon pure vanilla extract (almond extract would also be good!)
- 1-2 teaspoons milk (optional, to thin the icing)
- To prepare your fruit purees, blend ¼ - ½ cup of your desired fruit to a smooth consistency using a food processor or blender. Thawed frozen fruit works really well for this recipe because it's very juicy. For fruits with seeds or a thicker skin, like blueberries, push the puree through a fine mesh strainer so you have a smooth puree to add to your powdered sugar. You'll only need 1-2 tablespoons of puree for your icing, but you can freeze the remaining puree for another time.
- To prepare your spinach juice, blend ½ cup of spinach leaves with 2 tablespoons of water in a blender or food processor. Even if you aren't able to blend the spinach until it's smooth, you should still be able to blend it enough so that the water turns green. That is the "juice" you can add to your powdered sugar for a green colored icing.
- In a small bowl, add the powdered sugar and vanilla (or almond) extract. Add in 1-2 tablespoons of your fruit puree or vegetable juice, depending on how thin or thick you want your icing to be. If it's too thick, you can add 1-2 teaspoons of milk to thin it to your liking. If it's too thin, add more powdered sugar.
- Spread on your favorite sugar cookies, or use a DIY piping bag or squeeze bottle to pipe decorations.
On the Side
With all this talk about colors, we’re have A Lesson in Color Mixing! And a great book recommendation to go along with it.
Disclaimer: As with all of our recipes, my suggestions for how kids can help with a particular recipe are based on what has worked in our kitchen. Your child may be able to help more or less based on their age and/or ability. As always, make sure you are properly supervising kids in the kitchen.
Kumi says
March 23, 2016 at 9:24 AMHi, Sally. Sorry I’ve been MIA, but I’ve been keeping up with your posts and loving them. This one is especially great as I’ve been on a quest to eliminate artificial flavor and coloring from our kitchen. Thanks so much for the recipe. The cookies look amazing!
Sally says
March 23, 2016 at 1:04 PMThank you, Kumi! How is your new little one? I’d love to meet her sometime soon. Thank you for your compliment… I’m with you on trying to eliminate artificial flavors and colors in our food and I find it so sad that so many of our food products have them! It’s a work in progress…but totally worth it. Hope to see you soon!
Mary P. Stoltenberg says
March 23, 2016 at 12:28 PMThe colors are beautiful! Thank you for your great ideas.
Sally says
March 23, 2016 at 1:04 PMThank you, Mary!
tiapam says
March 25, 2016 at 11:26 PMLoving this post! The cookies and frosting both look amazing! We have food dye reactors here at our house. It’s so sad to me that so many are affected but don’t know it. IMO it is ruining parenthood and childhood for some families, And making teaching so much harder! Imagine what US education could be doing with all of the money now spent trying to help kids who are reacting to food dyes. Doctors should be using food dye elimination as a first intervention. Instead, many never mention it to parents. 🙁
Sally says
March 26, 2016 at 8:23 AMThank you, Pam! I know we’ve talked about this topic before. Food dyes are so widely used in our food products and in other products for daily living…it’s a bit scary. I’ve been doing my own “research” at the grocery store and you wouldn’t believe the products I’ve found that contain food dye. Thanks for your comment!
Lindsey says
February 6, 2022 at 10:50 AMHi! These look beautiful. Do you think you can use these purees successfully with homemade butter cream cake frosting?