Natural food colors are useful not only for.
Experienced chefs They have known for a long time: if you color products (cream for a cake, for example) not with production “chemistry”, but with dyes from natural ingredients, it will be both more useful and cheaper.
If it seemed to you that this would be a hard-to-reach way to give the desired shade, then you are mistaken. It's not that hard, we'll need regular products which you probably already have.
Look in the refrigerator or pantry and check your "bins" for beets, carrots, spinach. Citrus fruits or some red-blue berries (blackberries, blueberries, blueberries) will also come in handy. And if there is onion peel— generally great.
Well, everything is clear with the husk: more often 
just with her help we paint Easter eggs. Colors can range from light yellow to deep brown. Also yellow gives the zest of a lemon or orange.
But what about other colors? If we want a multi-colored cream, then we can make yellow and brown from ... zhzhenki.
It is necessary to dilute sugar in water (in a ratio of five to one), place in a deep frying pan, put on fire and boil until dark brown. In small portions, water must be added to the resulting mass (5: 2). Strain this solution through cheesecloth, and you can paint eggs with this paint or add it to the cream.
Blackberry or blueberry will give a blue color. Red will come from raspberries, currants, cherries. But you will get delicate shades of red and pink from such a natural dye as beets.
It must be grated on a coarse grater, pour water and boil for about an hour. Then strain it all, add a little citric acid to keep the color vibrant and refrigerate. In such water, you can keep eggs, dye fabric, or, again, decorate with it.
Such a natural dye carrot, will help you achieve orange shades. To do this, grate it also, fry in butter A couple of minutes. Squeezing carrots through cheesecloth, you will have natural dye orange.
The green color of the hostess is made from spinach, boiling it over low heat for 30-40 minutes, although its color will turn out to be rather weak. Want more saturated colors? Take the usual brilliant green from the first-aid kit.
By the way, just the time to remember the lessons of fine art at school. By mixing different colors you get new shades. For example, green with yellow will give you a beautiful blue paint. And what is important - it will be a natural food coloring!
So you can decorate anything, for example, or a T-shirt.
natural dyes - it's mined in a different way pigment substances from plants and animal products. The presence of this or that product in your stocks will provide the necessary coloring matter.
Natural food colors
Of course, these are bright cakes, cakes that are attractive to adults and children, and other culinary delights. Natural vegetable and fruit juices you can tint the dough for dumplings or use cuttlefish ink to make delicious homemade black spaghetti. You can also dye cereal for activities with young children, dye fabric, and finally, make natural food coloring at home with your own hands for soap. The advantages of all these dyes, in their naturalness, and therefore safe.
Food coloring at home
Depending on the origin, the scope of the natural dye will depend. So, beetroot, which perfectly tints flour products in all shades of red and vegetable dishes, not suitable for soaps and cosmetics, because gives bad smell and not a nice brownish-brown shade. For dyeing fabrics and dough for children's modeling, this is an ideal economical dye. 
How to make natural dyes
All kinds of natural clays, pink, blue, black and Iranian henna, these are wonderful dyes for soap, besides with scrubbing and caring properties, but not suitable for coloring holiday cakes. In addition, rich colors from fruit juices and vegetable broths will also not be transmitted variegatedly in a soap base, but flour product or cream, they will gratefully accept the coloring pigment.
How to make red dye
Red
color can be obtained from paprika powder and cayenne pepper, previously diluted with water. From dried and ground alkane roots (25 g), infused for a day in base oil (200 g) heated in a water bath. From pink and Moroccan clay powder diluted in water.
For food coloring for fabric, a natural dye from beets, you need to grate the vegetable on a coarse grater and enamel. simmer under a lid over low heat for about an hour. The beetroot will give the juice into the water, there after cooling, squeeze the remaining juice from the pulp through cheesecloth. Fix the dye with a pinch of citric acid.
How to make natural red dye at home from juicy red fruits? To do this, boil cherries, raspberries, strawberries and cranberries, currants, pomegranates, etc., or use squeezed juice. The intensity of the color will depend on the concentration administered. Do not forget only that soap with such natural dyes has a limited shelf life.
To learn how to dye soap with natural dye, read our article: Natural red dye for soap
How to make orange dye
Orange soap dye, this is turmeric powder dissolved in water; 1/3 tsp sea buckthorn oil or 0.5 tsp. rosehip oil per 100 g of soap base. Annatto seeds, infused for a day, in base oil preheated in a water bath, will give an orange color in soap from scratch. An attractive bright orange soap will turn out interspersed with dried and crushed orange peel. Grated carrots as much as possible will give a rich orange color to dough and vegetable dishes. 
How to make yellow dye
Yellow natural dye for soap can be obtained from spices, curry, turmeric and saffron previously ground in water or oil (with caution, an allergen). Dried chamomile and calendula flowers are infused with heated base oil, made into a decoction or added dry, resulting in products from flesh to bright yellow with undissolved particles. Rosehip oil added 1/3 tsp. per 100 g of soap base will give a light yellow tint and a nourishing effect. It will color citrus zest yellow, and all the same carrots, in small concentrations.
Milky - beige dye
Milky, beige
color for soap can be obtained using powdered milk. 
Natural green dye
Green dye, how to make natural dye for soap? Let's still turn to natural products. 
You can use decoctions of herbs or administer powdered sage, parsley, dill, algae, alfalfa, ground with water. Fresh chopped spinach, parsley and dill can be added as a puree or juice. will give green color spirulina soap and chlorophyllipt. Known since childhood "Zelenka" up to 5 drops per 100 g of soap base, it will perfectly color the New Year's soap green, but do not overdo it, it can stain the skin. Henna, diluted in water, will give the product a tone from the color of light olives to green.
How to make blue (cyan) dye
Blue, cyan
natural dye for soap can be obtained from 
powder of dried indigo root or blue clay, ground previously with water or oil. Essential oil chamomile will give the desired color from 5-7 drops per 100 g of soap base. Different shades of blue, will add decoctions and juices of blueberries, red cabbage, blackberries, grape juice and eggplant skin juice.
How to make purple dye
Violet natural dye for soap is obtained from alkane dye ground with oil, as well as from more concentrated juices and tinctures to obtain blue dye, given above. 
How to make brown dye
Brown soap dye, it's chocolate, coffee grounds, cocoa in 15% ratio to the total mass. 
Powdered cloves, tea leaves (5%) and hibiscus (hibiscus) tea. All of these components can reduce soap foam and cause allergies in some cases. How else to make natural food colors with your own hands, at home, brown, and non-allergenic? It is possible with the help of sugar, heated in a pan with the addition of water, in a ratio of 2.5: 1, just do not turn the future dye into a candy.
How to make white dye
White dye for soap, it is not replaceable (0.5-1)%, previously diluted in glycerin or oil for uniform distribution in the soap base. For culinary masterpieces, creams, soups, etc., you can use powdered sugar, sour cream, cream and milk. 
Natural dye black
How to make natural black, gray dye
Black gray natural dye for soap can be obtained from the powder activated carbon, triturated with water. Such soap can give a black foam, and a scrubbing effect. The magnetic mineral in powder, diluted with water, also gives a black color and scrubbing properties. Dead Sea mud mixed with glycerin, black clay, concentrated coffee solution and poppy seeds can also serve as black dyes. A beautiful black color gives food coloring - cuttlefish ink.
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, chefs try to decorate this or that dish as best as possible. Most attention in this case given to sweets and desserts. At home, you can also create various patterns from cream and sprinkles.
It's best to learn how to make food coloring at home instead of buying it from the store. The result will be no worse, besides, it is not dangerous to health. This homemade dye is used to color sauces, jellies, mastic, cream and more.
What are food colorings?
Food coloring comes in both synthetic and natural colors. In turn, synthetic are divided into liquid, dry and gel. bred in a small amount liquids to give the dish the desired shade.
Powdered dyes are diluted with boiled water, alcohol or vodka, and also, 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 quite often used in airbrushes or in sugar mastic as a water substitute.
Liquid food coloring is very similar to gel food coloring, but the latter is thicker and more concentrated. It is used in the coloring of creams (only non-protein ones), glazes, mastics and doughs. 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 red, it can be:
- beet;
- Strawberry;
- currant;
- pomegranate and other food products.
But you can get red food coloring not only from fruits, try using dark red tomatoes, red peppers and paprika powder for this purpose. But nevertheless, the most beautiful color comes from beets.
You can get red dye from beetroot as follows:
- Wash the root crop thoroughly under running water, peel it, and then grate it. Fill the beets with water. You don't need much liquid, it should only cover the grated vegetable. Put on slow fire and cook for an hour.
- Please note that the pan must be covered with a lid. Add a little citric acid (1/2 teaspoon) to the broth, this will prevent it from discoloring. After cooling, the red food coloring should be strained and then can be used.
How to make black food coloring
Black food coloring can be obtained in several ways:
- 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 color can be obtained by mixing artificial dyes of several colors. For example, take red, yellow and blue food coloring and mix thoroughly - you end up with a black color.
- The third way is how to make black food coloring at home. Take cuttlefish ink. Getting them recently is quite easy, 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 aftertaste, and therefore it is not recommended to use such black food coloring for mastic or other sweet dishes.
How is egg dye made?
Yellow food coloring (recipe): add turmeric (3 tablespoons) to the boiling vinegar solution. Remember that turmeric stains the skin quite strongly, so before you start working with this dye, be sure to wear rubber gloves to protect hands from staining.
Pink color: Chop 4 cups of raw beets and add them to the egg bowl. If the eggs don't look pink at first, but brown, don't be discouraged. After they dry, they will become a nice pastel shade.
Food coloring for blue eggs is made as follows: add 3 cups of chopped purple or red cabbage to the solution. In order for the eggs to become blue, they should be held 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 stand there in the solution all night.
Orange color: Onion skins give eggs a beautiful orange hue (four cups). To get a brighter color, then, as in the previous case, without removing the eggs from the dye, leave them overnight in the refrigerator.
Silver do-it-yourself food coloring: Place 2 cups of frozen blueberries in a container and add 2 cups of pure water to it. Wait for the mixture to warm up to room temperature, and then crush the berries. Let stand a little more, then strain the solution. Place Easter eggs in dye and refrigerate until morning.
Beige dye
To make beige food coloring with your own hands, you should use tomato paste. The saturation of the color depends on the amount of this product, for example, if you add a lot of tomato to the cream, 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 only need to mix the existing ones. For example, to get the color of the sea wave, you should mix two dyes: green and blue, and for a blue tint, you need to add green to red. When you mix red, blue and green, you get black. A beautiful pistachio shade can be achieved by mixing blue and yellow dyes.
Yellow
To color the 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 liquid food coloring. Dissolved in warm water turmeric also gives a beautiful yellow tint.
Green color
To get a rich green color, most often use fresh spinach. 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
Such colors can be obtained from blueberries, dark grapes, or eggplant skins. Can also be used for this purpose purple cabbage, which is pre-cut and boiled. With the help of sugar, you can get a brown color. To do this, sugar is mixed with water (5: 1) and placed in a pan. Make a small fire and fry the sugar, remembering to stir it constantly. Gradually, the mixture begins to acquire a brown tint. 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?
To date, produced a large number of artificial dyes, which are used in order to give dishes an attractive look. But it is not always known what exactly is part of these synthetic dyes. It often happens that their composition can only be determined through long-term laboratory studies.
Not in all cases, manufacturers are 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 use such products at all, but instead learn how to make food coloring at home.
Conclusion
There are two types of food coloring: 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 colorings are made from plant ingredients (usually vegetables and fruits).
Such dyes can be created independently at home and used to decorate all kinds of dishes.
Glossy magazines are full of pictures from mouth-watering dishes decorated with colored creams. Do cooking masterpiece won't be difficult. The ingredients for food coloring are natural. Therefore, they will not cause harm to health, unlike additives in store products.
To make red food coloring:- You will need one small beetroot. Peel it from the peel and rub it on a grater. Put the root vegetable in a saucepan and fill 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 give color saturation. When the broth has cooled, strain it through a sieve.
- Crush currants, cherries, cranberries or raspberries. Use the resulting juice.
- Use the pulp of tomatoes 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. For children's dishes, use warm water. Put the mixture in a dark place for 1 day. Strain the tincture.
- Grate the lemon zest. Put the mixture in cheesecloth and squeeze until juice is obtained.
- Mix turmeric powder with water. The proportions depend on the desired intensity of the paint.
- Finely chop red cabbage. Transfer it to a saucepan and cook for 15-20 minutes over low heat. Strain the decoction.
- A blue or purple hue is given by juice from blueberries, grapes or eggplants.
- Purchase indigo carmine dye at the pharmacy. This is a dark blue paste. Dilute it in water to the desired shade.
- Grind spinach through a meat grinder or through a blender. Wrap the resulting mass in gauze and squeeze. This will result in a light green color.
- To get a rich color, put the spinach in a saucepan, cover it with water. Cook over low heat for 35-40 minutes.
- A pistachio shade will occur when mixing blue and yellow dye.
- Grate 100 g carrots and transfer them to the pan. Fry the carrots over high heat, adding 100 g of butter. Switch off the stove after 2-3 minutes. When the mixture has cooled, squeeze it through cheesecloth. If there is no time for cooking, 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 with water in a ratio of 5:1. Fry the mixture in a pan until a dark mass is obtained. Constantly stir the sugar mass with a wooden stick so that there are no lumps. Well-roasted sugar gives a bright brown tone. Turn off the stove, add some more water. Strain the solution through a sieve.
- A pleasant chocolate shade is given by chocolate, coffee and cocoa powder.
Try making food coloring at home, it will add sophistication to your dishes. Your table will be perfect for any occasion. Just remember that homemade food coloring has a short shelf life. It is better to use it immediately or store it in a dark place.
Now elastic mastic is extremely indispensable in creating true confectionery masterpieces. With its help decorate cakes, make figurines for decorating all kinds of cakes. But the mastic itself looks very boring and uninteresting. It resembles white plasticine in appearance, only sweet and edible. Products from such a product will come out monotonous and faded. Dyes will add the missing beauty and brightness to the cake for sweet mastic which can be either natural or synthetic.
What are the dyes?
Dyes can be liquid, gel and dry:
- . Liquid dyes. With their help, creams for confectionery and drawing protein mass are colored. These tools can be used anywhere.
- . Dry dyes for mastic. Produced in powder form. With their help, you can give the desired shade to any confectionery product. Divorced in boiled water or alcohol.
- . Gel dyes. In some ways, they are similar to liquid dyes. They are concentrated, which allows them to be used extremely economically and dosed. By such means they color various creams and frosting. Often paint is added directly to the dough to make it unusual.
Some are afraid to use synthetic paint, fearing to harm their health. These fears and doubts are unfounded. If doubts do not leave, you can also prepare food colors for mastic at home from affordable and inexpensive products. getting ready natural dyes for elastic mastic not difficult at all.
Making our own food coloring
A yellow or brown hue will come out of the roast, which is extremely easy to prepare.
- To do this, five parts of granulated sugar are poured into a deep vessel and one part of water is poured, the container is put on a small fire and boiled until a thick mass of beautiful dark brown color is formed.
- Next, the pan must be removed from the stove and add water in small portions, stirring constantly.
- The resulting solution must be filtered.
- To get a yellow tint, you can take chopped saffron. It is poured with warm water for a day, after which it is filtered.
The source of the brown color can be chocolate or strong coffee. Depending on how the required dye is added to the mastic, the result will be obtained.
From beets you can get a delicate pink and rich red color. Depending on the concentration of juice, one or another tone will turn out. Beets are rubbed on the coarse grater, transfer it to a container and fill it with water, cover with a lid and boil for at least an hour. After that, the liquid must be drained, and the beet pulp must be squeezed out.
A pinch of citric acid is added to this solution, so the solution will remain bright and saturated. No less beautiful shades of red can be obtained by boiling the juices of any red berries. Making dyes to give different shades of mastic at home is not difficult at all.
Orange color will give juicy carrots, grated on a coarse grater and fried in butter. The oil will not burn at all if you pre-lubricate the pan vegetable oil. After about five minutes, the carrots will become soft and can be removed from the heat. The slightly cooled mass is squeezed through double gauze or a dense cloth.
As a source shades of green spinach will serve. It is passed through a press or crushed with a blender, then wrapped in cloth and squeezed. A more saturated tone will turn out if you boil the spinach juice over low heat for about forty minutes.
Violet and lilac dyes will give blueberries and grapes.
color mix
But what if you want to create something special, but there are too few shades available? What can replace the dyes for mastic to get a new color? You can get the desired color by combining certain means:
- . yellow + blue = green
- . green + black = dark green
- . yellow + lilac = light green
- . yellow + green + white = light green
- . red + green = swamp green
- . lilac + pink = lavender
- . green + yellow + orange = blue
- . red + purple = plum
- . red + yellow + blue = burgundy
- . white + red = pink
- . yellow + orange = peach
- . yellow + red = orange
- . white + green + yellow = lemon
- . yellow + red + white = beige
- . brown + orange = terracotta
Secrets of making paints
For many home cooks, it remains a mystery how to paint the mastic with dry dyes so as not to spoil the elastic mass. Even an inexperienced confectioner can cope with such a task, if you use food dyes for elastic mastic in your work.
Gel dye will need just a drop. The paint is added directly to the material and vigorously kneaded until a homogeneous plastic mass is obtained. It is necessary to mix very intensively and quickly, otherwise the mass will harden and the color will be distributed quite unevenly.
When using dry products, you can paint the mass in two ways. In the first case, an ordinary toothpick is taken and immersed in a dry dye, and then in the mass itself. This is done several times, and then the mastic is mixed. Knead until the color is evenly distributed.
In the second case, quite a bit of dry paint is placed in some container. Just a teaspoon of paint is enough. Drop 3 drops of water into the container or lemon juice, then mix well. Place this mixture directly into the mastic dough and knead vigorously. Now you know how to make a dye for elastic mastic quickly and easily.
Of course, this is a personal matter for everyone, which dyes for mastic are better to use: homemade or synthetic. It is important to remember only one thing, that you cannot save on your own health, so you need to choose the best. If you choose a synthetic mastic dye for the cake, read the composition on the package carefully. And if you prefer with my own hands make homemade dyes for plastic mastic, use the most ripe and fresh products for this purpose.
