by Gail Kavanagh

Created on: November 11, 2009

Colored sugar is a great ingredient to have on hand to decorate cookies and cakes, especially for the festive season. Christmas cookies look terrific with a dusting of red and green colored sugar, and if you have no time for elaborate icing, colored sugar can give your Christmas cake that festive touch without too much effort.

If you have a cotton candy machine, colored sugar also helps make the finished product look more like commercial cotton candy, and avoids that gray look you get just by using plain white sugar. You can easily make colored sugar at home in any shade you like, just by adding food coloring to plain white sugar.

You can use liquid food coloring for this, although making the sugar even slightly damp with liquid may cause lumps to form. So you need to be able to spread the sugar out so it dries quickly after you have added the liquid food coloring. Be very sparing as you add the coloring, just one or two drops will do to start with, and you can add more a drop at a time if you want a more intense color.

Place a cup of white granulated sugar into to a wide bowl, and add a drop or two of the coloring in your chosen shade. Use a fork to mix the color thoroughly into the sugar. If you prefer to use your fingers (which does give you greater control over the distribution of the coloring) wear those tight fitting plastic gloves you can buy at the drugstore. Liquid food coloring leaves very hard to remove stains on your hands and clothing, so wear an apron as well.

When the color is well mixed, spread a sheet of baking paper or tin foil on the counter top, and tip the sugar onto it. Spread it out thinly so it can dry. If you kitchen is very humid, you may need to put the sugar on a baking tray in a very low oven for a few minutes. Not too long, or too hot though, or the sugar will melt! Another way to loosen up sugar that becomes lumpy is to give it a 30 second whizz in a food processor.

To blend colors, make two or more batches of sugar and mix them together. Use simple color blending theory - red and yellow make orange, red and blue make purple, blue and yellow make green, and so on. By blending different amounts of red, blue or yellow sugar you can get subtle and unusual shades.

Even easier is powdered food coloring, which you can order on line from Sugarcraft. This is the coloring commonly used for making cotton candy. Powdered coloring is very easy to use and control, and gives you some lovely tones and shades of colors when you blend. You only need a tiny amount to get great color, and it means you never have to worry about your sugar getting lumpy from the liquid coloring.

Store your colored sugars in clean dry jars or plastic containers in the pantry. Using jars with perforated lids is a good idea so you can just shake the sugar onto your cookies or cakes. If you want to be more creative with your colored sugar, cut templates from baking paper into the shape of stars or flowers, or use cookie cutters, just shaking inside the cut out or cutter to make the shape on your cookies or cakes with colored sugar.

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