The Best Dye Free Food Coloring for Buttercream: TruColor

I have been on the search for the best dye free food coloring for buttercream cookies. I believe I have found the winner!

In short, TruColor Natural Food Color are the best natural dyes I have found. In my review, you’ll notice that there are some imperfections, though, so make sure to read the whole post.

If you want to learn how to decorate sugar cookies with buttercream frosting, check out my beginner online classes, Merry Cookies! (a Christmas cookie class) and Insta-Worthy Birthday Party Cookies!

Follow along for my full review and how to successfully use it to decorate sugar cookies with buttercream frosting.

Let’s get started!

*This post may contain affiliate links, which means I may receive a commission, at no extra cost to you, if you make a purchase through a link. Please see my full disclosure for further information.*

What is TruColor Natural Dye?

TruColor Natural Dye is an artificial color free food dye. The colors are compromised of naturally occurring colors in vegetables/fruits/plants. Here are the natural colors for each color in their essentials color pack:

• TruColor Food Color Powder in Red: Red Radish
• TruColor Food Color Powder in Orange: Organic Annatto
• TruColor Food Color Powder in Sunset Yellow: Beta Carotene
• TruColor Food Color Powder in Beta-Green: Beta Carotene and Spirulina
• TruColor Food Color Powder in Blue: Purple Grape
• TruColor Food Color Powder in Regal Purple: Beet and Spirulina
• TruColor Food Color Powder in Brown: Organic Caramel

They have other options besides their essentials pack but you get the idea of how the dyes are formulated.

Where to Buy TruColor Natural Dye

I purchased my TruColor dye free food coloring on Etsy. They have different packs but I suggest starting with the Essential 7 pack as you get red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, and brown.

The other packs are the Bright 7 pack, the Super 7 pack, and the complete pack with includes all the colors.

The Bright 7 pack contains brighter colors than in the essential 7 colors. You will find in the pack:

• No Fade Orange
• No Fade Yellow
• No Fade Spring Green
• No Fade Leaf Green
• Blue Turquoise
• Sky Blue
• and Fuchsia

The Super 7 pack contains colors that are darker than the essential 7 colors. You will find in the pack:

• Super Red
• Royal Blue
• Deep Purple
• Deep Violet
• Super Pink
• Dark Brown
• and Super Black

Mixing TruColor Dye Free Food Coloring with Buttercream

This was a bit of trial and error for me, but I will share what worked and didn’t work with you.

First, you need to obtain some supplies to mix the color. The dye free food coloring is a powder that will need to be hydrated with water.

I found the best way to do this was to use a small paint palette and a syringe.

You will typically mix one part food dye powder to two parts water. The most important things are to not over hydrate the mixture, as this will lessen the color payout, and to not underhydrate.

If underhydrated, not all of the powder colors will blend and you will see uneven coloring and spotted buttercream.

I made the mistake of adding too little water to some of the colors, like the blue, which resulted in speckling the first time I played with these dye free food colorings.

I have more thoughts on the blue in the section below.

Once your colors are properly hydrated, add it into your buttercream frosting. Just like regular dye, you can allow the buttercream to sit for a bit to develop into the final color.

If the buttercream isn’t dark enough, mix more powder and water and add to the frosting until the desired result is achieved. You may want to do a taste test as well as you go. Do keep in mind that the taste won’t be as strong on cookies, as the cookie will balance out the flavor more.

TruColor Natural Dye Color Results

I have only tested the essential pack so far but will likely continue testing the other packs. Overall, I was very pleased with the results.

Here is a video going over the process of making the dyes and the results:

TruColor Red

Red is one of the hardest colors to achieve, even with artificial dye. I did need to use a relatively large amount of red dye to achieve a nice shade of red buttercream frosting. You can see the photo toward the end that includes the back to school photos – that red is dark (I added quite a bit more dye) and still tasted good!

Next time, I’d like to try adding a drop of lemon juice to alter the pH. I have heard from others that this can create a brighter red, more along the lines of a Christmas red.

Here is the red after two and then four scoops of powder in about a third of a cup of buttercream:

TruColor Orange

The orange I would describe as a light neon orange. I’m sure if I added more of the dye it would get darker, as the orange worked very well to color the buttercream.

Here is the orange after two and then four scoops of powder in about a third of a cup of buttercream:

TruColor Sunset Yellow

A beautiful warm yellow that did not take much dye at all. If you want less warmth, I found that using less dye provided a cooler-toned yellow.

Here is the sunset yellow after two and then four scoops of powder in about a third of a cup of buttercream:

 

TruColor Beta Green

A warm green, similar to Wilton’s moss green but darker (see the school photo cookies toward the end of the post). If you don’t use much dye the green is more of a sage green.

Next time I use this, I plan to add in some of the TruColor Sunset Yellow to brighten up the green.

Here is the beta green after two and then four scoops of powder in about a third of a cup of buttercream:

TruColor Blue

This one was weird to tell the truth. When mixing, it was first purple. After further research, I learned that it is common practice to add more baking soda (there is already baking soda in the dye) to help with the pH, which will turn it to a blue color.

The first time I made blue, I didn’t know that so I ended up adding more blue until it looked like a slate blue. After developing overnight, it turned gray.

I then played with the blue dye again, and, this time, added the baking soda. It was blue right away; however, it still dried gray.

I am curious if I could have kept the baking soda out, leaving it purple, if it would have dried blue. Let us all know in the comments below if you’ve found a hack for the blue!

I have heard that the TruColor Sky Blue and Blue Turquoise shades (found in the bright collection) perform much better so I hope to try those soon!

Here is the blue after two and then four scoops of powder (with the addition of baking soda in the four scoops) in about a third of a cup of buttercream (without baking soda the blue still looked very similar to the two scoops of blue):

TruColor Regal Purple

Beautiful! Easily my favorite shade in the mix and I even like it more than my typical Wilton violet gel that I use.

Here is the regal purple after two and then four scoops of powder in about a third of a cup of buttercream:

TruColor Brown

Brown is okay. This works best for light brown colors, ivory, or even shades of different lighter colored skin tones. I would use cocoa powder for a dark brown if chocolate is okay.

Here is the brown after two and then four scoops of powder in about a third of a cup of buttercream:

TruColor Dyes Wet & Dried

Here you can see what the colors looked like when they were being piped versus when they dried. The biggest difference is the blue, which goes from blue (or purple if you didn’t add baking soda) to gray.

TruColor Dye Free Food Coloring Taste

Overall, on the cookies, I did not taste any of the plants used to dye the buttercream. It seemed that once the dye was on the cookies, the cookie flavor got rid of ANY hint of a plant taste. All I could taste was vanilla sugar cookie.

Individually, as in a taste of buttercream from the spoon, there were some taste profiles I will discuss below.

• Red – I did not detect a strong flavor for the red.
• Orange, Sunset Yellow, and Beta-Green – Carrots galore. But again, this was not noticeable on the cookie.
• Blue – Grape
• Purple – Grape
• Brown – I did not detect a strong flavor for brown.

I was so happy that there weren’t any bitter tastes and that no one in my family could detect the use of vegetables/fruits/plants in the dye when they were eating the cookies. It just tasted like delicious sugar cookies!

If you want my sugar cookie recipe, here it is. You will love that it is a no chill cut out sugar cookie!

My crusting buttercream recipe can be found here.

Save the Tutorial for How to Use TruColor Dye Free Food Coloring for Cookie Decorating

If you are planning on using dye free colors for cookie decorating, make sure to save this image to your cookie decorating board on Pinterest. Alternately, use any of the social sharing buttons at the top of the post to share to your favorite site.