You’ll never believe how easy it is to make your own colored sugar at home!
I stumbled upon this idea last month while making cookies for Bryce’s birthday party. The boys decided they wanted to frost and decorate some cookies we had made but I didn’t have any colored sugar. After a moment of thought I decided I would try to make my own colored sugar.
My first attempt was putting the sugar in a small bowl, dropping in the food color and then using a fork to mix it all up – that was not successful. Next I tried putting the sugar in a plastic bag and shaking it up – success!
The boys and I had so much fun making a variety of colors. I let them choose how many drops of each color we would put in and then they would guess how it would turn out. The yellow food coloring fooled them more than once because it looks orange 😉
This is so easy you are never going to buy store-bought colored sugar again!
What you will need:
Plastic bags
food color
sugar – (granulated for smaller crystal or raw sugar for larger crystals)
Put a couple of tablespoons of sugar into a small plastic bag. Add a drop or two of food color into the bag. Seal the bag and shake it up. If the sugar starts to clump, just use your fingers to massage the clumps away. Keep working at it until the color is nice and uniform.
Try mixing up the food color to create amazing and vibrant color variations.
I enlisted the help of my little guys and had lots of bags going on at one time. The more the merrier!
This is what the granulated sugar looks like:
And this is what the raw sugar looks like:
This would be super fun with the neon food color that is available as well. The sugar can be stored in the plastic bags or in an airtight container. Now you don’t have to limit your decorating to the colors you find in the store. I am certainly excited to have some awesome cookie decorating parties this holiday season.
More fun ideas:
Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup Mini Cheesecakes
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Have a great day!
raylenefrey says
Hi,
I need brown coloring, I know sugar in the raw is brown, but I noticed in your pic that you had a brown color, I am using the brown color for sock monkey cookies for our cafe. I looked at americolor for brown and didnt see it listed. Any suggestions?
Trish - Mom On Timeout says
Hmmm! The color shown there is raw sugar with a purple coloring. I don’t have brown unfortunately.
Dani Davis says
I just wanted to say, this was a great Idea, I just recently seen this on Pinterest. My daughter and I need colored sugar for a recipe and I didn’t have any. This was a time and money saver. Not to mention my daughter enjoyed the project. I mentioned your site in my post I hope you don’t mind!
Elizabeth says
Your sugar wouldn’t clump if you put the color on a piece of cloth and then shake it in with the sugar.
Nisha says
Works great also is dried a bit. I normally keep it in a warm oven for a few mins. Works fine all the time!
Trish - Mom On Timeout says
Great tip! Thank you Nisha!
Husnah says
Hi…
Thanks for sharing. I have already made some colours 🙂 but i was wondering if i can use it on buttercream for cake decoration.
Perhaps you can help…
many thanks
Trish - Mom On Timeout says
You can use the sugar however you’d like – I’ve used it on cakes many times!
Summer says
How do you make hot pink?? or black??? This is soo awesome!!! I can’t wait to try it 🙂
Trish - Mom On Timeout says
You’d have to get the right color dye for that Summer – have fun!
renee says
i need black sugar
Trish - Mom On Timeout says
You’ll need black gel food color then Renee. Check on Amazon for it if you can’t find it at your local store.
Brooke says
Thank you, This worked beautifully and savees our chick cupcakes. I love the reminder to let our kids participate in what they are capable of (including sweeping up the sugar that has spilled on the floor) and making desiscions on the right amount of drops.
Trish - Mom On Timeout says
Absolutely Brooke! I’m glad you gave it a try 🙂 Happy Easter and thanks so much for stopping by!
Katie B. of HousewifeHowTos.com says
Pinned! This is such a great idea. I love that you used Sugar in the Raw, too, instead of the refined white stuff. Can’t wait to give this a try, Trish. Also, I wanted to invite you to join my How To Tuesday link party, if you haven’t already joined . It would be wonderful to have you!
http://housewifehowtos.com/linkage/link-party-2/how-to-tuesday-link-party-12-and-features/
Trish - Mom On Timeout says
Thank you so much Katie!
Sandy Fowler says
This is fabulous! I love the idea of being able to make so many different colors. I also like the idea that the kids can help make it. Now my brain is spinning with ideas for decorating my daughter’s birthday cake.
Trish - Mom On Timeout says
Oh that’s awesome Sandy! It is pretty cool 🙂