How to Make Colors from Food Coloring

With primary colors, you can create nearly any hue using food coloring. Use your imagination, and these guidelines, to create a color for any purpose, including baking, frosting or candy making.

Things You'll Need

• Liquid or gel food coloring in primary colors
• White food coloring

Instructions

1. Combine primary food coloring colors to create secondary colors. Mix equal amounts of yellow and blue to produce green, red and yellow to produce orange, and blue and red to produce purple.

2. Combine secondary food coloring colors with primary colors to create tertiary colors. Mix equal parts yellow and green to create yellow-green, red and orange to create orange-red, and orange and yellow to create yellow-orange.

3. Add white food coloring to create pastel colors. Add equal parts white and blue to create sky-blue, white and green to create light-green, white and red to create pink, and white and purple to create lavender.

4. Combine different primary, secondary and tertiary colors to create more exotic food coloring colors. Combine approximately five parts sky-blue with one part green to make an aqua color. Combine five parts pink with one part purple to make a burgundy color. Combine three parts pink and one part orange to make a melon color.

5. Experiment with different combinations to come up with your own unique food coloring colors. Write down any winning combinations to use in the future.

Tips & Warnings

• Use your food coloring combinations to color icing, cakes, popsicles or candy, or in any recipes that call for food coloring.

References

• Book: Cake Decorating for Dummies; Joe LoCicero; 2007

Resources

• Read this Article in Spanish