Natural Food Coloring

Coloring is an important ingredient in any baking. We want our cake to look attractive, thus coloring is important to achieve that outcome. There are a lot of negative comments on the food coloring and this makes me quite worrying whenever I am using food coloring. Due to my laziness, I always find an excuse to go for food coloring.

Everything changes today. I want to go for Natural Color from now on. We have been eating a lot of unhealthy food and I do not want my home becomes another unhealthy place. Everything comes in 'yin and yang'. If too much 'negative' food, at home always have to provide 'positive' food to balance up the life. This is just my thoughts. Maybe it is not correct  :)

Here are the colors that I would like to prepare:

Violet: Blueberry
Blue: Purple cabbage
Green: Green Tea
Yellow: Saffron
Orange: Carrot
Red: Beetroot

Since I am going for natural color, I always prepare the color a few days in advance. I froze the color in the freezer and defroze them by locate them in the vegetable compartment for a few hours before use them to bake any cake.

Here is the preparation of the colors:

1. Red: 1 medium Beetroot 

Beetroot is the best coloring due to its intense color. The color is so dark and you do not need to use a large quantity of it. The juice of the beetroot can be easily extracted using a juicer.  Then, transfer the juice into a pot and cook over a medium heat until it is thicken up.

2. Orange: 3 medium Carrots
Juice out the pure carrot juice using a juicer. Then, transfer the juice into a pot and cook over a medium heat until it is thicken up. The color looks a bit darker.

3. Yellow: 1 tbsp Saffron
Transfer Saffron into 2 tbsp of hot water. Let it sit for half an hour until the color is extracted out.

4. Blue: 1/2 medium purple cabbage  

Boil 100 ml of water. Put in the cabbage and let it boil until the cabbage leaves are soften or for around 10-15 minutes. Strain out the cabbage, reduce the liquid until it is thicken. Add just the tiniest pinch of baking powder (you really have to go slowly here or you can turn the whole batch green). Keep adding baking soda in small amounts until the color just turns blue. Remember,  the color of blue can still change. If you add it to an acidic food, it will go right back to purple.

I was accidentally added too much of baking soda and the color turns out to be slightly greenish

5. Violet: 100g of blueberries
Wash and blend all the blueberries in a blender. Then, transfer the juice into a pot and cook over a medium heat until it is thicken up.