Food coloring is used to color frosting for cakes, cookies and other confectionery treats. Typically, food coloring comes in four basic colors: red, yellow, blue and green. You can buy other shades, but if you have the basic colors, you can combine several of these to create other shades, such as lavender.
- Red food coloring
- Blue food coloring
Drop several drops of red food coloring into a small bowl. If you are making frosting, you can mix the colors directly in the frosting, although that will require additional stirring to blend the colors. If the colors are combined first, the final color will appear as one shade, as opposed to several.
Add an equal amount of blue food coloring to the red. It is important to match, drop for drop, the red and blue food coloring. Stir with a spoon to blend.
Mix a little bit of the blended food coloring with the item you are coloring. Start with a little at first. If you are mixing it with white powdered sugar (such as in cake frosting) a larger ratio of powdered sugar will make a softer shade of lavender. For a darker lavender, add more of the red-blue blend.
Add more drops of blue to your frosting if you want to move from lavender to purple.
Add more drops of red to your frosting if you want to move toward burgundy.