All Of A Sutton: The Birthday Squiggstravaganza Part II: Piece of Cake

The squiggstravaganza was a little over a month ago and i think we have finally recovered. Having the entire clan in town was wonderful ... and overwhelming, but mostly wonderful.
I managed to get all my projects accomplished before family started arriving, including these fun table toppers and the all important party dress:

All, that is, except for the one that had to wait until the last moment: the cake. And what's a birthday party with out a birthday cake? It's just a party, that's what.
For weeks i had been envisioning a beautiful stacked rainbow cake with vibrant colors that have never occurred in nature. As i did my research into the appropriate method for coloring the cake i suddenly realized that i would be using a petroleum based gel color created in a chem lab by specially trained scientists, and they're pretty pricey to boot.
Now it should be noted that i'm not a food-fascist, we eat sugar and gluten and even fast food more often than i would like to admit, but something about serving those artificial colors to a one year old (not to mention everyone else) did not sit right with me.
So what is a diy mom to do? Why order a set of all natural food colors online! JK, you want to talk about expensive? Those suckers start around $17, but if you've got more money than time they are a viable option. I, however, googled and pinned and collected a handful of techniques to make my own colors that are not only 100% natural but also easy and inexpensive. A bonus to making your own food colors is accessibility, everything you need can be found in your local produce section.
So without further ado i present you with my food coloring shopping list:
-Purple Cabbage
-Beets
-Carrots
-Spinach
That's right, it's all veggie's. Now i will admit i got some strange looks, and some people thought i was joking when they heard the words 'cake' and 'vegetables' together but i'm pleased to say i showed them! Despite what flavors come to mind once they're in a cake all you can taste is cake. What should be noted is that natural coloring results are somewhat unpredictable but practice will give you an idea of what you'll end up with. Here is how i prepared and used my natural veggie colors.
The prep is super easy, especially if you have a juicer. (Ours was like $30 at walmart back when the husband decided he was going to do that whole juice craze, it's been in a cabinet for the last 2 years).
If you don't own a juicer you can find some tutorials out in blogger-land for "juicing" with a food processor and the like.

To Make:

Purple : Purple Cabbage. Chop it and boil the purple out of it. After you strain out the cabbage bits you can continue to boil down the liquid to concentrate the color. Go ahead and saute up some kielbasa and onion, throw the boiled cabbage in and have yourself a delicious meal to commemorate the gorgeous purple food coloring you just made.

Gorgeous

Blue: It's notoriously hard to achieve a saturated blue, even with synthetic color. But to create a nice powder blue in baked goods prepare a purple color as above then add a teeny tiny smidge of baking soda. Mix thoroughly and wait a moment, if it is not quite blue yet add another tiny smidge, mix and wait. If you add too much baking soda it will turn green so take your time until you get the right shade of blue.

Red/Pink: Beets. Either boil and juice fresh beets or juice canned beets, i used canned because i didn't need the huge bunch of beets my grocery had. Reserve the juice from the can and use it as well, like the purple solution the juice can be boiled down to concentrate it. Depending on how much you use beets can create any range of reddish-pink from bright magenta to a pale petal pink.

Orange: Carrots, duh. Juice 'em or buy 100% carrot juice from the health food aisle to save a little work. It works fabulously for a fun bright orange and will make any baked good extra guiltlessly sweet. Use what you need then drink the rest, good and good for you.

Green: Spinach. Stop right there, it is nearly flavorless on it's own and completely undetectable in a sweet treat. Juice it, a lot of it. A whole bunch of spinach juiced down to about a 1/4 cup so juice accordingly for your project, the upside is it packs a colorful punch. Beautiful bright green for St. Patrick's Day, Earth Day or a kid that really likes green.

That's purple and blue in the back, they are appear very dark once concentrated.

Now just replace some or all of the water called for in your recipe with your newly minted color(s), the amount of color vs plain water will determine how bright or pale you finished product will be.

I tested my colors with little ramekin cupcakes, these are mid-bake (and upside down?) because i forgot to take before and after pictures.

Once i scaled my recipe up the colors were a little less vibrant just because of the amount of mix, next time i will probably just choose one or two colors and go all out for a bold effect.

I divided my batter *before* i added any water and mixed in each color, it took a lot of mixing because of the weird order of operation.