Black Food Coloring

The black icecream post of yesterday prompted a question: how to make black food coloring.

Well, let's start with the ice cream: you can always mix liquid coloring until it's practically black. WonderHowTo has an article on some options, but essentially you would start by mixing in equal parts of the primary colors (blue, red, yellow) and add as needed... which could lead to a LOT of coloring if you start with a light-colored base.

If you started with a chocolate icecream base and add the liquids, on the other hand, you could achieve a very close black (mixing food colorings to make black too often results in a dark brown... yuck!)

The recipe for the black ice cream I linked to actually gets its color from black seasame paste, though! I love the taste of toasted sesame, and I love even more that it turned the foodstuffs black.

Here is a recipe I found to make that paste:

-1 part of white sesame seeds/beans (50 g)
- 2 parts of black sesame seeds/beans (100 g)
- toast until fragrant
- Grind until fine
- place in a pan with a little sugar (30-40 g) and milk (200 ml)
- cook with low heat until the mixture becomes dark in color
- let cool completely
- place in a blender to make the mixture smooth

(for a very smooth texture, press them in a sieve)

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Finally, I don't know how far they deliver or if it's a good experience (don't order online much, myself) -- but baking supply places like Wilton's do have online ordering. You can always try that for black food coloring paste!

http://www.wilton.com/store/site/product.cfm?id=3e30b2d9-475a-bac0-5d5c3db846dfd354

Best of luck and happy Half-a-Ween!!