Okay, let’s talk about this whole oil-based natural food coloring thing I tried messing with.
So, I got tired of those artificial colors, especially when I needed something for chocolate or frosting that doesn’t like water. Regular natural colors are mostly water-based, right? They just seize up chocolate or make my buttercream weird. I figured, there has to be a way to get color into oil.
Figuring Out What to Use
First thing, I needed stuff to make the colors. I looked around my kitchen. Had some beet powder for pink/red, turmeric for yellow, and matcha powder for green. Seemed like a decent start. For the oil, I just grabbed some basic vegetable oil I had lying around, wanted something neutral that wouldn’t taste weird.
First Go – Just Mixing
My first thought was simple: just dump the powder into the oil and stir. Yeah, that didn’t really work out great. I put some beet powder in a little bowl with oil and whisked it like crazy. It kinda mixed, but not really. The color was weak, and most of the powder just settled at the bottom after a minute. Looked muddy. Pretty useless.
Okay, Plan B – Adding Some Heat
Then I remembered reading somewhere that heat can help infuse flavors into oil. Maybe it works for color too? Seemed worth a shot. So, I got out a small saucepan. Super important: low heat. Really, really low. Like, barely warm. Didn’t want to cook the powders, just gently coax the color out.
I poured some oil in the pan, maybe half a cup? Then I added a good tablespoon of beet powder. Started stirring it constantly over that super low heat. Kept stirring and stirring. It took a while, maybe 15-20 minutes? I noticed the oil itself started taking on a nice pinkish-red hue. It smelled a bit earthy, like beets, but not bad.
I did the same thing with the turmeric and the matcha powder in separate little batches. Turmeric turned the oil a really vibrant yellow pretty fast. Matcha gave a nice green, though it also had that grassy smell.
Getting the Gritty Stuff Out
Once the oil looked colorful, I took it off the heat and let it cool down just a bit so I wouldn’t burn myself. The powder was still in there, making it sludgy. So, I needed to strain it. I grabbed a small fine mesh sieve, the kind you use for tea. For the beet powder one, which was a bit finer, I lined the sieve with a coffee filter first, seemed to catch more of the tiny bits. Poured the warm oil through it slowly into a clean jar. It was a bit messy, gotta be careful.
- Beet powder gave a nice deep pink/light red oil.
- Turmeric resulted in a bright, sunny yellow oil.
- Matcha made a decent green oil.
So, Did It Work?
Yeah, it actually worked way better! The strained oil was smooth and colored. I tried mixing a bit of the red oil into some melted white chocolate. Success! No seizing, just colored chocolate. The yellow went into a small batch of buttercream, tinted it nicely without making it watery. The colors weren’t maybe as crazy bright as the artificial stuff you buy, definitely more natural looking, which I kinda liked anyway. They are subtle, don’t expect neon.
I just stored the oils in small airtight glass jars. Kept them in a cool, dark cupboard. Not sure how long they’ll last, but probably a decent while since it’s just oil and plant powder pigment.
Overall, it was a bit of fiddling around, especially the slow heating and stirring part. And straining takes patience. But hey, it works. If you want natural colors for oily stuff and don’t mind the process, give it a try. Beats buying fancy expensive specialty colorings, and you know exactly what’s in it.
