Pastries decorated with multi-colored cream are not only pleasing to the eye, but also whet the appetite. Often housewives add artificial colors to the cream, bought in the store.

However, the abuse of non-natural products can negatively affect health.

I suggest making dyes at home using the juice of some plants and other ingredients borrowed from nature.

Today you will learn how to make green cake cream (or blue), and also learn how to make various natural dyes with your own hands.

How to decorate a cake with butter cream

Baking a cake for a significant event is not an easy task. But you can cope with it if you show your imagination and follow the recommendations of the confectionery art guru. First, stock up on the ingredients you need.

50 g of condensed milk (made in accordance with GOST); 0.5 packs of butter (good quality); vanilla - a pinch.

Preparation:

1. Soften the oil. You can cut it into pieces and leave it at room temperature for 40-50 minutes. Another way, it is faster, involves using a microwave oven, where the oil will be ready in 2-4 minutes.
2. Using a mixer, beat the softened butter, not forgetting to add the vanillin.
3. Pour the condensed milk in stages to obtain the desired consistency. It is possible that the declared amount of condensed milk will be too much.

Condensed milk will give sweetness to the cake cream, but you need to work with the shade separately. If you want to give the cream a chocolate color, add cocoa powder.

The intensity of the color depends on the amount of powder, and it is in your power to change it both up and down.

The finished cream can be transferred to a pastry bag with a suitable attachment. But if it is not there, use the means at hand and build something similar.

For example, from a thick plastic bag. It is enough to fill it with cream and then cut off the corner.

You will get a small hole through which you will squeeze out blue or any other colored cream for dessert, making various inscriptions or other elements.

A rotating stand will be a good help in the work. You will not need to be distracted by turning the cake dish in different directions.

With a slight movement of your hand, you can quickly turn the dessert and apply the next element with the cream.

How to decorate a cake with protein cream

Decorations for a protein cream cake look no less beautiful and elegant. The main thing you need to remember is the absolute cleanliness of the dishes and utensils involved in the preparation of the cream.

First things first, separate the whites from the yolks. In order not to spoil the entire batch of eggs, break each unit over a clean cup, and only then pour the protein into a common bowl.

It is advisable to send the proteins to the refrigerator, they whisk better at a low temperature.

Wash the whisk and dishes in which you will whip the cream and pour over boiling water.

The slightest traces of fat will not allow you to achieve splendor, which means that your efforts will be in vain. Drops of water on the dishes are also unacceptable; after processing, carefully wipe the bowl and whisk with a paper towel.

In the process of whipping, add a pinch of salt and soda to the whites. This will save both time and energy. Plus, citric acid will make the mixture less sugary.

You can decorate the dessert with snow-white protein cream, it will look festive and elegant. Some confectioners prefer to paint the mass, because flowers in the natural environment are found in the most incredible shades.

What natural dyes can be made from at home

Taking into account consumer demand, professional pastry chefs decorate desserts with cream roses and inscriptions in different colors.

Housewives can use store-bought blue dye in their kitchens. But is it so safe for health?

Let's turn to the experience of our grandmothers who managed to make dyes from available products. How and from what they did it, we will now figure it out.

The easiest and easiest way to color the cream is to add the boiled juice of some vegetables, berries or fruits to it.

It is known that the green color is obtained due to the presence of spinach juice, orange - carrots. Beets give red and turmeric gives yellow.

By combining colors with each other, you can get other shades. For example, by combining yellow and green dyes, you get a blue tint, which is also often used when decorating desserts.

Remember, beets will not give the cream a bright red color. Even if you boil it and mix the broth with a small amount of vinegar or citric acid, the result will be a brown hue or fuchsia color.

Finely chop the carrots before use and sauté for a few minutes in butter. After rubbing the mass through a sieve, add to the cream, and you will get a carrot-colored decoration.

A rich orange hue will give you more likely not carrots, but orange peel. You will be convinced of this when you rub a piece of sugar on the peel of this citrus.

Sugar crystals quickly absorb flavors and any color. Experiment with lemon, lime, and you will see how the sugar takes on a new color. By the way, orange color can be achieved using apricot boiled in syrup.

Turmeric, or rather its saturated aqueous solution, will make the cream not bright yellow, it will have a greenish tint.

If the decoration needs to be given a yellow sunny color, use saffron. An alternative to saffron would be sea buckthorn or pumpkin.

A red or deep pink color is obtained from fresh or frozen raspberries, cranberries or lingonberries.

Strawberries, despite their bright color, will give the cream an ugly brownish-red hue. Cherry juice mixed with cream will give it a cool red, with a purple tint, color scheme.

If you need a deep purple, inky rich dye, use blackberries.

And add blackcurrant syrup to the protein mass before baking, the result is a pale blue meringue.

A couple of drops of syrup will be enough to give the dessert a pleasant color. The saturation of the hue depends on the amount of dye, adding more than usual, you get a blue color.

Blueberries and blueberries will give you purple or cold lilac.

A delicate creamy shade is obtained by adding tomato paste. If you increase its concentration, the decoration from the cream will acquire a delicate orange tint.

Fear not, the dessert will not taste like tomatoes, the amount of dye is too small to affect anything other than color.

A hint of spring green will be presented by spinach, it is the leader among green natural dyes. It has a neutral taste, which means that your dessert, like before decorating with cream, will be sweet and thin out the vanilla aroma. Alternatives to spinach are tarragon (tarragon) and mint leaves.

Brown dye is cocoa powder, melted chocolate and saturated coffee solution (it can be either instant or ground).

How to make dyes at home

Syrups from various berries can be cooked in advance and kept in the refrigerator in a well-sealed container. If necessary, use to give the desired shade.

Frozen products are also used. You just need to defrost the berries, cover them with sugar (in a 1: 1 ratio) and boil them over low heat. Strain the mass.

Rinse and chop the spinach. Pour in a little water and blanch for 5 minutes over low heat. Strain the green solution.

Peel and cut the beets. Boil 15-18 minutes in water and add a few crystals of citric acid. Use a strained solution.

You do not need to cook mint and tarragon, otherwise they will acquire a brown tint. First, prepare hot sugar syrup, add chopped herb to it and let it brew.

Chop pumpkin, as well as carrots, before use and sauté in butter.

When can natural colors be added?

Pumpkin, carrot and saffron dye should not be added to the dough before baking (this does not apply to meringues and macaroons.

It is better to soak the finished cakes with syrup so that the dessert acquires the desired shade (green, blue, pink, red and others).

Natural colors are not added to the cream before whipping as they do not aid the process. Add them at the very end and in the amount necessary to obtain the desired shade.

Multi-colored dough for dumplings, ravioli are prepared with dyes previously dissolved in water. This is necessary for even distribution throughout the mass.

My video recipe

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, the chefs try to decorate this or that dish as best as possible. Most of the attention in this case is paid to sweets and desserts. At home, you can also create various patterns from cream and sprinkles.

Your best bet is to learn how to make food coloring at home rather than buying it from the store. The result will be no worse, moreover, it is not dangerous to health. This homemade dye is used to color sauces, jellies, mastic, cream and more.

What are food colors?

Food colors are both synthetic and natural. In turn, synthetic are divided into liquid, dry and gel. diluted in a small amount of liquid to give the dish the desired shade.

Powdered dyes are diluted with boiled water, alcohol or vodka, and, if desired, are 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 often used in airbrushes or sugar mastic as a substitute for water.

Liquid food coloring is very similar to gel color, but the latter is thicker and more concentrated. It is used in the coloring of creams (only non-protein ones), glaze, mastic and dough. 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 a red color, it can be:

• beet;
• Strawberry;
• currant;
• pomegranate and other food.

But red food coloring can be obtained from more than just fruits, try using dark red tomatoes, red peppers, and paprika powder for this purpose. Nevertheless, the most beautiful color is obtained from beets.

You can get red dye from beets as follows:

• Thoroughly wash the root vegetable under running water, peel, and then grate. Pour water over the beets. You don't need a lot of liquid, it should only cover the grated vegetable. Put on low heat and simmer for an hour.
• Please note that the pot must be covered with a lid. Add a little citric acid (1/2 teaspoon) to the broth, this will prevent it from fading. After cooling down, the red food coloring should be drained and then used.

How to make black food coloring

Black food coloring can be obtained in several ways:

• The 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 can be obtained by mixing several colors of artificial dyes. For example, take red, yellow, and blue food colors and mix thoroughly - you end up with black.
• The third way is how to make black food coloring at home. Take the cuttlefish ink. They are quite easy to get lately, 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 a black food coloring for mastic or other sweet dishes.

How to make egg dye

Yellow food coloring (recipe): Add turmeric (3 tablespoons) to the boiling vinegar solution. Remember that turmeric stains the skin quite strongly, so be sure to wear rubber gloves before using this dye to protect your hands from staining.

Pink: Chop 4 cups raw beets and add them to the egg bowl. If the eggs at first seem to you not pink, but brown, do not be discouraged. Once dry, they will turn into a pleasant pastel shade.

To make food colors for blue eggs, add 3 cups of chopped purple or red cabbage to the solution. For the eggs to turn blue, they should be kept 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 sit there in the solution all night.

Orange color: Onion skins (four cups) give the eggs a beautiful orange tint. To get a brighter color, then, as in the previous case, without removing the eggs from the dye, leave them in the refrigerator overnight.

DIY silvery food coloring: Place 2 cups of frozen blueberries in a container and add 2 cups of clean water to it. Wait for the mixture to warm to room temperature, then crush the berries. Let them stand a little longer, then strain the solution. Place the Easter eggs in the dye and refrigerate until morning.

Beige dye

To make a do-it-yourself beige food coloring, you should use tomato paste. The color saturation depends on the amount of this product, for example, if you add a lot of tomato to the cream, then 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 just need to mix the existing ones. For example, to get aqua color, you should mix two dyes: green and blue, and for a blue tint, add green to red. Mixing red, blue and green produces black. A beautiful pistachio shade can be achieved by mixing blue and yellow dyes.

Yellow

To color a 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 a liquid food coloring. Turmeric dissolved in warm water also gives a beautiful yellow tint.

Green color

Fresh spinach is most often used to achieve a rich green color. 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

These colors can be obtained from blueberries, dark grapes, or eggplant skins. You can also use purple cabbage for this purpose, which is pre-cut and boiled. With sugar, you can get a brown color. To do this, sugar is mixed with water (5: 1) and placed in a frying pan. Make a small fire and fry the sugar, remembering to stir it constantly. Gradually, the mixture begins to turn brown. 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?

Today, a large number of artificial colors are produced, which are used in order to give an attractive appearance to dishes. But it is not always known what exactly is included in the composition of these synthetic dyes. It often happens that their composition can only be determined through long-term laboratory tests.

Manufacturers are not always 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 the nervous system, cause oxygen starvation and, worst of all, provoke the formation of tumors. Therefore, it is better not to consume such products at all, but instead learn how to make food coloring at home.

Conclusion

There are two types of food colors: 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 colors are made from plant ingredients (usually fruits and vegetables).

You can create such dyes yourself at home and use them to decorate all kinds of dishes.

Today in stores you can easily find a fabulous variety of food colors that will decorate any baked goods in all the colors of the rainbow. But the chemical composition of these dyes is often a cause for concern. Moreover, when it comes to sweets for children, when you need to make or order a birthday cake for a kid.

Below are the ways to make natural colors for creams and glazes.

Light pink dye

The glaze and cream of a pale pink color are created with the help of raspberries.

In this case, you can make a completely raspberry cream. In this case, 180 ml of raspberries are required for the cake. Alternatively, you can simply paint the cream or frosting with raspberry paint. To do this, take 2 teaspoons of concentrated raspberry juice in 1 glass of cream.

White-pink color

Create with strawberries.

Everything is exactly the same as with raspberries. 180 ml strawberries for the amount of cream or icing for one cake. And then it's pure strawberry cream. Or 4 teaspoons of concentrated strawberry juice in a glass of cream or frosting.

Intense pink

Many people are afraid to paint cakes with beets. What if instead of a cake, you end up with a beet salad? Do not be afraid. Will not work. The beetroot glaze will be red and will not add borscht flavor to the dessert.

Beets should be baked in foil until tender. But you can just boil it. Whom it is more convenient. The main thing is that the vegetable does not lose its color. Then grate on a fine grater.

The exact amount needed to color the chopped beets is determined by how intense the color you want to achieve. Usually, the ratio of beets: glaze is enough - 1 to 8.

Do not be afraid. The frosting will turn intense pink, but not beetroot in taste.

Pink-purple shade

Creams and glazes of a similar color are obtained using blackberries.

The recipe is similar to using raspberries and strawberries.

True Blackberry Cream requires 120 ml of blackberries per serving. For tinting, you can take 4 teaspoons of concentrated juice in a glass of cream or glaze.

Orange paint

Orange creams and glazes are as easy to obtain as red ones. Sometimes it is advised to add citruses for orange coloring, mainly orange. But this method is not very efficient.

Creams and glazes containing carrot juice acquire a much brighter orange color.

And again, do not be afraid that carrot juice will make a carrot cake out of a cake. It won't. The juice has a rich color, and you need very little of it.

The standard dosage is 3.5 tablespoons of carrot juice in 1 cup of cream or glaze.

Yellow dye

It is very easy to make a frosting or yellow cream. It is enough to add a little turmeric to them.

But you have to be very careful with turmeric, as this spice is spicy. And unlike harmless beets, it gives the glaze a spice and its own specific taste. Therefore, if you put a little more of it than required, you can easily ruin the baked goods.

To prevent such an incident from happening, turmeric should not be added immediately to the glaze or cream itself, but to the amount of liquid that is planned to be added to them.

The most successful ratio is ½ teaspoon of turmeric powder to 2 tablespoons of liquid (preferably milk). Next, the liquid with the turmeric dissolved in it must be added to 1 glass of cream or glaze.

Green color

As for dyeing cream and glaze green, not everything is clear.

The most effective way is to add spinach leaves crushed in a blender. But the color is not too intense.

For example, the icing on this cake required two whole cups of chopped spinach to color it. It is clear that such a large amount of greens can give the cream or frosting its own flavor, which is completely inappropriate for sweet baked goods.

Therefore, green creams and spinach frostings have to add other bright flavors, for example, a large amount of mint.

Still, some people cannot eat such a spinach cake. The sweetness is said to leave a nasty aftertaste behind.

Yellow-green tint

This shade is achieved by adding 8 teaspoons of crushed avocado pulp to 1 cup of cream (glaze) to the cream or glaze.

But the food turns out to be for an amateur, since the taste of avocado is clearly felt.

It can be seen that at least spinach, even an avocado, the dye turns out to be not too bright and has its own taste that is not suitable for dessert.

Light lilac color

Light lilac, white-lilac are obtained with the help of blueberries.

For blueberry cream (frosting), take 120 ml of blueberries per serving (per cake). For a simple touch-up, use 8 teaspoons of concentrated blueberry juice per glass of cream. But in this case, the color is not so bright.

Violet and cyan dyes

For all its seeming artificiality, dyes for cream in purple and blue glaze may well be natural. True, their preparation is quite troublesome.

To create the purple and blue food paint, we need a large head of red cabbage.

It must be cut into large pieces, filled with water and cooked. Water should be poured as little as possible so that it only covers the cabbage.

You need to cook cabbage for 15-40 minutes. Depends on the variety. The main thing is that the cabbage broth has an intense purple hue.

As soon as this happened, we take out the cabbage from it. And we continue to boil the broth itself until it evaporates. It will take a long time to evaporate. Since the broth from under one large head of cabbage should turn into only ¼ glass of dye.

This is how it should look in the end.

Or simply add the resulting purple dye to the frosting or cream and end up with purple baked goods.

Or add a pinch of baking soda to the purple dye, which instantly turns the purple dye into blue.

From which you can then easily prepare any blue cream.

And don't be afraid to spoil your baked goods with cabbage spirit. It will not be.

Each pastry chef is an artist who strives to ensure that his creation becomes a real work of art. Only the artist uses paints, and the pastry chef uses food dyes, which, unfortunately, are not beneficial to health. But how to get out of this situation, because not only taste is important for dessert, but also appearance?

Let's figure it out!

You don't have to run to the store and buy all kinds of synthetic food colors to give your confectionery a beautiful color. It is enough to have on hand a few vegetables and fruits with which you can make natural food colors at home. The only thing is that the colors obtained in this way will not be very bright and saturated.

So how do you make food colors at home and get the color you want?

Natural food coloring: red and pink

The best ingredient for obtaining a natural pink color is beets. Its juice will change the color of the product without affecting the taste.

How to do it?

Just wash the beets and put them in a blender with 1/2 cup of water. Mix everything until smooth, then strain. The resulting liquid is your natural food coloring.

You can also use cherry, pomegranate, and raspberry juice to make the color red.

Natural food coloring: orange

To make orange food coloring, papaya, mango, or pumpkin are essential ingredients. But the easiest way to get orange color is by using carrots.

How to do it?

Peel the carrots, grate them on a coarse grater and place in a hot skillet. Pour in butter and sauté over low heat. Then let the carrots cool and strain through cheesecloth. You can also use carrot juice as a dye.

Natural food coloring: yellow

If you've ever used turmeric, you know that it yellows everything it gets on: clothes, leather, tables, etc. Therefore, be careful when making this dye.

How to do it?

Combine 1/2 cup water and 1 teaspoon ground turmeric in a saucepan and then simmer. Let cool. You need to store such a dye for no more than two weeks in the refrigerator.

Natural food coloring: green

The combination of Matcha green tea powder and spinach creates a beautiful green coloration that is ideal for decorating dishes.

How to do it?

Combine 1 tablespoon of matcha powder, 1/2 cup fresh spinach, and 1/2 cup water in a blender. Mix until smooth, then strain. The resulting liquid is a natural green food coloring.

Natural food coloring: blue and purple

The most difficult color is blue. It can be obtained from eggplant peels, grape juice, blue potatoes, or purple / red cabbage. Blueberries also make a great natural purple food coloring.

How to do it?

Combine 1/4 cup fresh blueberries with 1/8 cup water in a blender. Mix until smooth, then strain to create a natural purple food coloring.

To get the natural blue dye from purple / red cabbage, you need to boil it, after which the water will turn dark. You can use this water as a dye, and to make the color brighter, add a little soda.

Natural food coloring: brown

Brown color can be obtained not only from cocoa powder, coffee or chocolate, but also from burnt sugar.

How to do it?

Mix sugar and water 5: 1 and pour into a frying pan. You need to fry sugar over low heat, stirring constantly. When the mixture has acquired the desired shade, remove it from heat and add a little more water.

Natural food coloring: black

An important role is also played by the black colorant, which can be obtained thanks to a special type of cocoa powder called "Dutch ultra". Also, to get a black food coloring, you can use cuttlefish ink, but the dishes will then have a salty taste.

You can also mix food colors to create different shades and new colors.

We hope this article on natural food coloring was helpful. Don't forget to like it.

Natural food colors are useful not only for.

Experienced chefs have known for a long time: if you dye products (cake cream, for example) not with production "chemistry", but with dyes from natural ingredients, it will be both healthier and cheaper.

If it seemed to you that this would be a hard-to-find way to give the desired shade, then you are mistaken. It's not that hard, we'll need conventional products that you probably already have.

Look in the refrigerator or closet and check your bins for beets, carrots, spinach. Citrus fruits or some kind of red-blue berries (blackberries, blueberries, blueberries) are also useful to us. And if there is onion peel, it's generally great.

Well, with the husk everything is clear: more often just with its help we paint Easter eggs. The colors can range from light yellow to deep brown. Also, the peel of lemon or orange gives yellow color.

What about other colors? If we want a multi-colored cream, then we can make yellow and brown from ... burnt.

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. Add water in small portions to the resulting mass (5: 2). Strain this solution through cheesecloth, and you can paint eggs with such paint or add it to cream.

Blackberry or blueberry will give a blue color. Red will come from raspberries, currants, cherries. But you get delicate shades of red and pink from such a natural dye as beets.

It needs to be grated on a coarse grater, covered with water and boiled for about an hour. Then strain it all, add a little citric acid to keep the color bright, and cool. In such water, you can keep eggs, dye fabric, or, again, decorate with it.

A natural dye like carrot will help you achieve orange hues. To do this, grate it also on a grater, fry in butter for a few minutes. Squeezing carrots through cheesecloth, you will have a natural orange dye on your hands.

The mistress's green is made from spinach, boiling it over low heat for 30-40 minutes, although its color will turn out to be rather weak. Want richer hues? Take the usual brilliant green from the first aid kit.

By the way, it’s just time to remember the lessons of art at school. By mixing different colors, you will get new shades... For example, green and yellow will give you a nice blue paint. And what is important - it will be a natural food coloring!

This way you can decorate anything, for example, a T-shirt.