Colored Sugar

I found adding a few drops of water to paste color rather than liquid food coloring resulted in brighter colors and was easier to spread evenly thoughout the sugar. I put the sugar in a ziploc bag and add a few drops of the diluted coloring. I shake and then use a rolling pin to spread the color throughout the sugar.

Awesome idea!! I had to use 5 drops of food coloring for about 1/3 cup of sugar. I spread the sugar on aluminum foil overnight to dry, that way you can just fold the foil in half and pour it right into a jar or bag. Thanks, I'll never buy silly colored sugar again! This sugar is quite pretty and looks like glitter on the cookies.

Great Idea and very easy! I also had a small problem with moisture, but I just spread it on a plate to dry for an hour or so and it was fine.

So simple...My kids really enjoyed making this. I bought cheap salt & Pepper shakers from the dollar store and put the sugar in them to make it easier for decorating holiday cookies.

Great idea - I definitely needed this for cut out cookies. You can make as little or as much as you need and mix as many colors as you can come up with. I highly recommend going to the dollar store and getting small cheap containers.

This is such an excellent way to make colored sugar.I just added a little more color as needed. I needed colored sugar to sprinkle on my heart shaped cookies for Valentine's and didn't want to run out to the store to buy colored sugar. It's inexpensive and works really well. Whatever sugar I had left over I would just use in my coffee or tea or in anything that the color wouldn't matter. I even used the left over surgar when making my home made pasta suace. Thank you so much!

This deserves 5 stars for being so fast and cheap. A small packet of coloured sugar costs about $6. here and you get about 1/4 cup worth. Now I can make my own and any amount I wish, quick and easy. It does need to be put to dry out a little after first colouring it though, But it is worth it. Thanks Sue!

I first tried this with regular granulated sugar and storebrand liquid food coloring drops. Disappointing, dull & tired colors. Tried again with granulated sugar and gel food color, and sha-ZAM! Now that's the bold color I was looking for. I'd take the tip of a butterknife to dip into the gel color, then wipe the knife off on the inside of a Ziploc bag. Add sugar, then mash it around. Then I tried the gel color with sparkling sugar, and that was just beautiful.

We took empty spice bottles and made a rainbow of colors, and the kids loved it! What a great idea and money saver..... was doubtful at first, but it turned out great!

This is quick and easy-and kids would love to help! This recipe should be added to the mashmallow chicks.

I tried this with jello and sugar added drops of water and mixed and its great I did it with raspberry jello and it tastes like raspberries

This was so great! I just made jack-o-lantern cookies and sanded them with orange and black sugar that I made myself. They turned out beautifully, and it saved me A LOT of money.

the color is not quite as even as store-bought, but i think that makes it look cooler.

I made 4 different basic colors for Christmas cookies. It's easy to do, but it has the consitancy of Moon Sand. It never completely dries out. Since it's also regular sugar the crystals are very fine, so you have to put more on for it show on frosted cookies. I used some old bottles of Spices I had in my pantry to shake it on.

When I was a kid my Grandma always made her own colored sugars. She would spread them out on wax paper and let them dry overnight. It's one of my favorite memories of her.

Easy and saves alot of time & money! I just put about 1/3 cup of sugar in a fold top sanwich bag(very cheap and thin so easy to mix)along w/ about 5 drops of blue liquid color and smooshed it around a bit w/ my hands. I then spread it out on a plate & used it on sugar cookies about 10 minutes later. Great!! Thanks!!

This is a wonderful idea and is extremely easy and economical. We tried it with watered down gel color first and it made the sugar smell very bad. The only suggestion I would give is to use the liquid color as opposed to the gel.

If you put it in a small food processor or chopper, not only does the color mix well, but you end up with a finer grain of colored sugar. It doesn't take as much sugar when decorating and we like the finer texture.

I am SO glad I have finally found this recipe!! It's getting expensive buying decorator sugars!! However, the coloring was way to light for a full cup of white sugar. So I kept adding drops of color until it was right!! THANK YOU for sharing this recipe!!

Perfect and easy! Even works with Sugar in the Raw - put it in a sandwich bag shook and stored.

I'm NEVER buying colored sugar again. This is so easy and you can make however much you need although extras do store very well in an airtight container. I've made it using both the liquid food coloring and the paste type food coloring however you get a much better, brilliant color with the paste but in a pinch the liquid will work you just may want to make it ahead of time because depending on how much of the liquid coloring you use you may need to spread out the colored sugar on a plate or cookie sheet and leave out to dry if it's a little damp and clumpy.

Never again will I buy colored sugars! This was so easy and you can make any color you desire. I used the ziplock baggie method and mixed with my fingertips. It could not have turned out more perfect!!!!

I LOVE this! Will never spend money on colored sugar again. :) I used this method for making pink sugar for valentine's cookies. Quick and so easy!

best idea ever !

So easy and works great!!!! No need to buy colored sugars anymore!!!!

I used zip-top bags, and much more than 2 drops food coloring. Did not bother to measure, and it turned out perfect. I let it dry on wax paper, but I don't know if it was strictly necessary to do so. The colors are perfect - easiest recipe I have every made!

Fun & easy! I mixed it up with my fingers and it looked beautiful.

This worked great and was so simple to do. I mixed up a batch in a small jar and used it right away. No need to even let it 'dry'. Thanks for the great idea!

VERY easy to make! This will work for my sugar cookies. Thanks for the recipe!

I couldn´t find colored sugars here in Argentina so I was thrilled to see this "duh!" recipe to color sugar myself! Thanks!!!

Fantastic!! Anyone know how to get the moisture out of it though?? I put a lot of food coloring in and it made a nice dark pink color. Make sure you start shaking asap or you'll get lil blobs of dark pieces (guess you could sift them out anyway). I don't think i'll ever buy colored sugar ever again - thanks so much for this amazing idea!!!!!!!!

What an ingenious idea! It's such a simple recipe/idea that I wonder why I never thought of it before?! I used 1/2C of sugar and about 7 drops of colouring, combined it well in a ziplioc bag and poured it out on a sheet of tinfoil to dry. I'll never buy coloured sugar again. You can make as much as you need without any waste! Hmm..I wonder if I put a squirt or two of my favorite extract in as well if it would work? Vanilla sugar? Yummy, thanks for a great recipe!

This does not work with gel food coloring.

This is a great way to make fun colors without trying to find them in the store. I have a TIP for anyone interested. I used Quart Size Ziploc bags for the mixing so the kids could help and see the sugar change color. It was also easy for storage as I put all the bags in a plastic tub which we pull out for our fun baking projects. Thanks!

So easy. But be patient it takes a little work. what i did was stick the sugar in a zip bag and put the color (paste not liquid) in the bag and then smushed it around. I didn't really measure the sugar I just put the amount i wanted in a the bag and then just kept working with the food coloring. I then took my rolling pin and rolled it around the bag and that took care of clumps. In between rolling the bag I would shake the bag to distribute any color that was clumped. Thank you so much...i made a whole bunch of colored sugar in a few mintues and was ready to make my cookies without having to go to the store for colored sugar!!!!

This was fun to do, thanks for an easy fast recipe.

This was really simple and my daughter and I had so much fun making it! We're so excited to make our sugar cookies tonight! :)

Awesome! For even better results, use turbinado sugar (ie Sugar in the Raw) which can probably be found at your grocery store. It is a courser sugar just like the store bought colored sugar sprinkles.

quick and easy! Great results!

OMG I wish I'd realized how easy this was years ago!

This was great! I tried using the new gel style food colors... doesnt work at all. It just globs up. But the regular food coloring works great. 3 drops to half a cup of sugar was plenty. Much better colors and more vibrant than store bought. Just left dry on wax paper for 30 minutes.

Worked great, thanks! :D

What's also great is one can make the color they want for the theme they are working with. Use black color paste (not sure if that's what it is called) for example if one needed black sugar. A lovely lilac instead of just purple, or a deep blue.

This was so easy...took me less than five minutes. I put the sugar in a sandwich-sized ziploc bag, put in a few drops of liquid food coloring, closed the bag (leaving air in the bag so that she was room to shake it freely), and voila! With the see-through bag, I could see where the sugar and dye had clumped and was easily able to "de-clump" it and continue shaking.

Simple and easy! This worked fabulously. Took about 9 drops of liquid color for really vibrant colored sugar. Thanks for sharing!

Duh... *coloring + sugar = colored sugar* I feel like a dope for buying the stuff! Thank you for adding this recipe!!

OMG this is a gr8 idea. me & my single friends backed on valentines day and they were amazed with the idea... it also works with coconuts :-)

I make this sugar all the time...it is so much cheaper than buying it at the store! I use more coloring to get deeper shades. Thanks for sharing!

All I had was gel color that was not incorporating. I ended up using about 1/2 teaspoon of hot tap water and a few drops of the gel color. After dissolving the colors I added them to the sugar. I did get a bright orange rock of sugar on the bottom at the end, but it turned out well enough.

such a money saver i used this to color layers of sugar in a cookie in a jar recipe thanks!

There aren't enough stars to give this one! I'm throwing my daughter a rainbow birthday party in a couple weeks and wanted something festive to decorate with. I'm going to use it as a centerpiece in a glass jar and decorate some treats with it. We made it together just using ziploc baggies. It should be noted that the little teardrop food color that you get in the grocery store never really gives you a great red - just brighter shades of magenta. I got some Wilsons icing dye at WalMart for really cheap though, and got a perfect red. I can't wait to use it, and best of all, we had a blast making it. She loved seeing the white sugar change colors. The only expense we encountered was the shirt I ruined with red dye, but I did have a two year old in on the job, so others should be fine :D

Not as vibrant as store bought and a bit moister, but very pleasing results. Keeping the rest to use again. Thanks for sharing.

Easy. Thank you

So simple. This makes sugar cookies look beautiful. I love it. I will never again pay for over priced color sugar. Thanks so much for sharing!

am rating this a 5 star for simplicity and economics. Much cheaper than having to go out and buy every color sugar one needs for just one special occasion. I used some homemade vanilla sugar, and found that the 'shake' method didn't work too well to evenly distribute the coloring. It clumped but that may be due to the fact that it had a little moisture in it from the vanilla bean. Next time I'll just use the food processor. great recipe to make small quantities and use the coffee grinder method also. I did need to use more than 2 drops of coloring to get desired affect. Thanks for this simple, economical recipe.

This was soo great to make. I sang the Casey and the Sunshine Band song, "Shake Your Booty", while my kids and I shook the containers. Now we have a rainbow of colored to sprinkle on our sugar cookies.

Can also be used as EDIBLE GLITTER for little ones craft projects

I did this to make pink sugar for some valentines cookies and it worked really well! I just put it in a plastic bag and worked with it until it was a uniform color!! Thank you for the recipe, I had no idea how easy it was to color sugar!!

I used plastic sandwich baggies (separated in 7 baggies)& put 1/3 cup sugar w/5 drops of the primary colors in each one (used regular food coloring not gel). For red I used 9 drops of food coloring, orange used 2 red drops and 3 yellow and for purple 3 red drops and 2 blue. Then I spread the sugar on plates to dry for about an hour and a half. I stored them in thicker baggies (used for crafts). The only thing different from store bought stuff is the grain is finer. But more importantly I saved money!

I used this as a last resort as I had run out of my store-bought sugar sprinkles. I'll never have to buy sprinkles again. I put a cup of sugar in a food processor and added a few drops of food dye; couldn't have been easier.

This is seriously easy..perfect for the yellow easter chicks recipe..!

I always preferred the store bought colored sugar over making my own because the crystals were bigger. When I found a large container of white sugar crystals, I knew it was more economical to color my own. I had no moisture problems using the large sugar crystals.

worked like a charm! so much easier and cheaper than buying colored sugar in the store.

Brilliant and simple, just the way it is. Perfect for cake decorating!

Perfect recipe for me. Hubby is a coffee drinker, and I'm a baker so I always have dye and sugar around. Who wants to spend the money on store bought colored sugar when you can do this.

So simple and easy. Love this, used often and so economical.

Awesome! This worked perfectly. I had spent so much money getting all the ingredients for a cupcake themed baby shower...and forgot the colored sugar...and I didn't want to go back out for that, or spend 5 bucks on it. I used some barely diluted color paste. Put 1/2 cup sugar in a Ziploc bag...added a couple color drops, Viola! Worked like a charm.

I've found out that after initially shaking the sugar with the coloring in a bowl, using a hand held potato masher works really well to blend the colors in!

So easy and so inexpensive. Made a peach colored sugar to go with my favorite sweet tea recipe on this site....(with a little peach vodka and fresh peaches) Will definately use this alot, it's brilliant!

Very easy to make. And it's a pretty decoration.. Just a little tip I picked up, if you get food coloring on your hands, you can wash your hands with an SOS pad. Only down side to this recipe is that when I sprinkled it on sugar cookie icing it melted into the icing.

How cool!! My supper club is having Mardi Gras night this month. I want to make a King Cake but didn't know how difficult it was going to be to find purple, green, and gold sugar. So, I found this recipe and made my own! All 3 of the colors look awesome!! How easy!

This was way to easy and fun, especially when you have kids to get involved. I used zilpoc baggies and got my kids to shake them up, and they had fun doing so. But trick is, when using liquid food coloring the darker you want your sugar to be, the more drops you put in with the sugar. Still quick, easy, simple, and cost effectively cheap...no more buying the colored sprinkles when I can do it myself...even using decorator's sugar crystals work well. 5 stars all the way.

Thank you so much for the recipe Sue. I forgot to buy some yesterday and it was too cold to go to the store today. Easy recipe. I shook it up in a ziploc bag - works and tastes great.

I used the previous reviewers advice to add the gel to water to get more vibrant colors. It worked perfectly.

This is SUPER EAST. I put 1/4 cup sugar in a heavy ziploc, 5 drops of food coloring (that seemed to produce a good vibrant color - I was going for pink and blue), closed bag, rolled it around in the sugar with my fingers, and then shook bag until it was totally combined.....maybe 1 minute...and presto. It was dry and ready to use...GREAT!!!

I LOVE THIS little trick I tried this as soon as I read it I made some Blue and it was so pretty i dont know if anyone else thought to do this but make sure you sift the sugar onto the aluminum foil so that your sure to catch all the little clumps and your sugar stays fine I will be doing this alot.

THIS IS SOOOO AMAZING THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!

Sweet. Let the sugar dry on some tin foil or something after you color it, and if it's got clumps run it through the sieve or sifter. Perfect!

My grandma used to do this when I was a kid. It's an easy and economical way to make your own colored sugar. I use the larger grain sugar. To make pink, just add a small drop of red food coloring and get to shaking! It won't be a bright pink, but more a pastel color! Great for Easter.

I was surprised at how well this turned out! I was skeptical at first because I had food coloring paste. I added some sugar in 3 baggies and made yellow, green, and purple for my Mardi Gras King Cake. The colored sugar looked wonderful!

This is awesome! The stuff in the stores is so expensive. I used more drops of color than called for but this stuff is great and I will use it over and over again!

I too had to add a couple more drops of coloring. I made a batch using granulated sugar & then a bath using raw (turbinado) sugar. I prefer the raw sugar even though the color gets a little muddied (due to the golden color of the sugar)... I just like the larger crystals (it's got better flavor too). Thansk for the recipe...I will, no longer, spend $4 on a 1/4 cup of colored sugar. LOL

This worked out very well. The colors were excellent for the sugar cookies we were making and the price is just right! Quick way to make just the color you need for any occassion.

My duaghter and I did this very quickly and easily. 1 ziplock 1 cup of sugar and 7 - 12 drops of liquid food coloring. mixed in in the bag and put in a bowl in a warm oven and mixed it up after it dried out. the we put it in a round glass like sand art and seal with melted chocolate. edible sand art.

10 stars if I could for holy cow easy....why didn't I ever think of this!!! So simple I just put 1/3 cup sugar in a ziplock & added 2 drops green food coloring to make shamrock cookies for St. Patricks day with my son!!

Pretty easy, although I found it necessary to "mix" the sugar and food coloring with a spoon or fork rather than just shaking it in a bag or container. Shaking left big blobs of colored sugar. I found scraping the sugar in a container with a fork to blend the color evenly to be most effective...although it had a bit of a 'nails-on-a-chalkboard' sound.

What a great idea, why didn't I think of it? I had everything in the house to make my grandson's birthday cake except "sprinkles". Shook it up in a little Tupperware container, so what is left over can stay right in it! This will be perfect, and I don't have to go to the store!

Wow! I can't believe I didn't review this recipe when I used it back around Christmastime! This sugar worked really well as a decoration for Christmas cookies as well as a coating for truffles. After coloring the sugar, I spread it out in a baking dish and put it in a 250 degree F oven, stirring every 5 minutes until it was no longer moist. Make sure you put plenty of color in, because the color does dull a bit as it dries.

Some thing that after you read it you say,,, of coarse! But you need the tap on the side of your temple, like this recipe, to get you to consider it. Thank you for the idea, Sue!

worked perfectly, just put sugar in ziploc sandwich bag to mix... voila!

simply the best idea EVER!! It is one of those... "why havn't I thought of this before" recipes :)

Fast and easy! This recipe *made* my Valentine's Day cupcakes. Thanks!

Easy peasy!

Excellent! I drove all over Sydney trying to find purple, green, and gold colored sugar for my king cake with no luck. Wish I had looked here first. I used 1/3c sugar to 5 drops of food coloring to get the color I wanted and let it dry on a plate for an hour or so. Perfect!

Just made this because Publix didn't have orange colored sugar for Hershey's Kiss Peanut Butter cookies. Made about 2 cups and did have to add more food coloring (8 drops of red/12 drops of yellow to get the orange color). It is finer than colored sugar from the store but the money I just saved in gas and cost of the store bought sugar is worth it. I did use the baggie method and definitely will do again trying that Sugar in the Raw for bigger crystals. I should have tried this years ago! Thank you for the recipe!!

great idea! I also added a drop (it takes very little) of candy flavoring ie. peppermint to red, etc. It worked great...although I don't know what that will do to the shelf life.

It takes a lot of red food coloring to get red colored sugar. It was getting too wet, so I had to stop at a dark pink. It still worked out in a pinch. I would use the recipe again.

I am baking Halloween cookies, and was in need of orange and black sugar. When I looked at what was available at the store, I decided to make my own. The ready made colored sugar was expensive, and quantity was too small for my needs. I scoured the internet for a couple of days to find a recipe to make my own and ended up with finding this recipe today. I purchased the raw sugar, since the crystals are larger than the standard granulated sugar. I used the liquid food colorings to make the orange sugar. For the black sugar, I used a black icing color(adding 2-3 drops with the aid of a toothpick to the sugar). After shaking the black sugar around, it looked like a dark mossy green, so I added a few drops of red food coloring to make the sugar darken in appearance. The sugar was air dried on wax paper for an hour and stored in Ziploc baggies. Thank you very much for posting an incredible recipe! My results were the colors I was looking for.

My kids love this, just to do it... My daughter did it and added it to sugar cookie butterfly cuts with cream cheese icing, they were so pretty!