McCormick Nature's Inspiration Food Colors, 0.51 oz

Easy to used, good packaging, smells really nice

We have a child that can’t have red dye, and we love to bake and often want to color frostings and icings. We’ve been so limited on colors until now. I’ve used this a couple of times to create pastels for very large batches of frosting (probably 8+ cups), and I still have plenty left. It’s really easy to use and mixes really well for a powder. I love that you don’t have to prep it in any way, just add it into the mixer and watch the color appear. I didn’t follow the color suggestions on the back since I had an idea of the color I wanted. It was easy enough to achieve the colors I wanted each time. I haven’t used the blue yet, but hopefully soon!Update: Added a photo of our Christmas cookies, and I have to say we are even more pleased with these now. I never would have thought we could get a color anywhere near a true red with these, but by mixing a lot of the pink, some of the yellow, and a bit of the blue we got the color you see there. I’m also really pleased with the blue by itself. We just opened it for the cookies tonight. These are going to be a staple in our baking cabinet from now on.

I wanted to make unicorn cupcakes for my daughters birthday without all the synthetic crap like red40 and yellow5, etc. i had high hopes but I think my expectations were a bit unrealistic. I originally intended to use a white (or white ish) frosting base. In the end, I made buttercream with coconut palm sugar and you can imagine it was NOT the off white color of traditional buttercream but a light tan. I divided the buttercream into 5 bowls of 1cup each and followed the provided directions for 5 of the 6 colors listed. (Yellow, blue, pink, purple, mint.) the dye is so mellow in color, it took doubleing the recipe to change the color of the tan buttercream. And the blue wasn’t blue at all but a nice mint color (due to the color of the buttercream). Anyway, I wound up using all of the dye to achieve versions of the colors I was hoping for (except blue- I gave up on that) and they turned out all right. I think this might make nice pastels in a cream cheese frosting but I wouldn’t expect the vibrant hues we’ve come to expect from gel food colors.

YAY! This coloring is amazing. My son can't have artificial dyes so we have tried many natural color options over the years. THIS is our favorite by far. The powder colors blend in great and on first try we mixed green just as the box instructed and it turned out great!! With other brands the colors were very light with recommended amount and we would have to use a lot. We had perfect green icing the first try and my son was thrilled! I have already order another box because we have not seen this locally and I want to be sure we have more. I will post the buttercream icing recipe we use below. It has worked amazing with this coloring and the icing is the correct amount to follow the mixing guide on the box.**Buttercream Icing**1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract2 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted2 tablespoons milkMcCormick Natural Food Color1) Cream room temperature butter with a hand mixer, the paddle attachment of a stand mixer, or a wooden spoon until smooth and fluffy.2) Gradually beat in confectioners' sugar until fully incorporated.3) Beat in vanilla extract.4) Pour in milk and beat for an additional 3-4 minutes.5) Add food color, if using, and beat for thirty seconds until smooth. See box and add color as directed for frosting.

The McCormic Color From Nature colors are vibrant, beautiful natural colors, that are easy to work with. We found mixing the powdered colors into edible vegetable glycerin worked really well to create a color paste (glycerin is often used as a base in other natural colors that already come in liquid form), and the powders completely dissolved into the glycerin making it easy to then blend this paste into the recipe. In our case we kneaded a small amount of our colored pastes into white fondant incing to decorate a cupcake birthday cake that consisted of around 50 cupcakes. The colors were beautiful (we also received a lot of compliments from guests regarding the cupcakes) and we were able to control the intensity and hue of color by varying the amount of powder used. We only needed a small amount of the powder and we have a lot left for future recipes and baking projects. One shouldn’t be dissuaded by the seemingly small amounts of powder that come in the box as a little doesn’t go a long way. You can also mix the provided colors to make other colors such as mixing the red and yellow to get a nice orange or the yellow and blue to get varying shades of green. We would highly recommend these colors for anyone looking for a natural alternative for their baking needs.

First I don’t really like that these came in packets as it’s not easy to pour into cups, I prefer small bottles. The packets are kinda small I got four uses out of them. I used these to make my own toddler’s paint and making his pancakes. Mixing it in the pancakes are fine but when you cook them in the pan the color doesn’t show that much. I have to say after the fourth use I was ready to throw this stuff out, the smell that came from the blue food coloring was kinda overpowering and nauseating. I like the concept of a nature food plant based food dye and the colors on the box was very pretty but I won’t be buying these again.

I have a kiddo who is sensitive to food dyes (and even if she wasn't, food dyes are terrible for you anyway). I finally decided to try this stuff, specifically for the yellow. (I have used beet juice in the past for a beautiful rose/mauve pink). This turned out AMAZING. I used both packets for a vivid yellow frosting. There was zero weird taste. It was DELICIOUS. Absolutely will be using this again.(Just want to mention that I used black cocoa powder in a buttercream frosting for the edges, and for the logo, I printed out that logo on paper, cut it out, laid the empty spot of the paper on the top of the frosted cake, and sifted on the loose black cocoa on until I was happy with the result. Then I removed the paper. Worked SO well- and I am an amateur baker!)