Make your own rainbow coconut sprinkles! These easy coconut sprinkles take just 5 minutes to prepare and are perfect for cakes, bakes and treats!
I'm really excited about today's post as it combines two of my favourite things - rainbows and sprinkles! I love sprinkles, I often (probably too often!) use them to turn ordinary foods into a fun sweet treat with just a quick shake of the jar.
Recently though I spotted that my lovely friend Aileen from Baby-Led Feeding had made gorgeous healthy homemade sprinkles using desiccated coconut, I was utterly inspired and just had to give it a try!
Now I must confess that I didn't go the whole hog and make completely healthy sprinkles as Aileen did, mostly because I wanted to make them right now quickly so I didn't have a chance to go on the hunt for the healthy ingredients she used to colour hers. My sprinkles are lower in sugar at least, so that's a good start, but I used gel food colourings to colour them as I had them already in the cupboard.
According to the packaging, the food colourings I used (Dr. Oetker brand) are 'natural' food colourings so they're probably not too bad, however there are a few E-numbers on the ingredients lists so I must admit I'm slightly suspicious of their 'natural' credentials. Moving on though, I personally don't think a little sprinkle of colouring here and there is going to do much harm, everything in moderation as they say!
You might think that homemade sprinkles sounds like altogether too much effort, but I promise you, these are SO easy, you won't believe it! You do need to think ahead as the sprinkles need to be left to dry overnight, but actual prep time is 5 minutes maximum, I promise. Before you know it you'll be sprinkling away to your heart's content, I can't wait to share some of the projects I'm planning for mine.
Check out my recipe video so you can see just how easy these are to make, and for more sprinkle colour mix ideas!
The best thing about making these homemade sprinkles is that you can customise them for different projects! Want ocean themed sprinkles? Just use blues and greens, or yellow and orange for sand. Need sprinkles for a princess party? Dig out the pinks and purples!
You have complete control over the colour combinations so you can make just what you need, how brilliant is that! For my sprinkles though, I went for a good old fashioned rainbow combination of yellow, blue, red and green.
Homemade Rainbow Coconut Sprinkles
Ingredients:
- 80g desiccated coconut
- natural food colourings
Method:
Line a baking tray with greaseproof or baking paper.
Measure out your coconut, then split between small china or glass bowls in as many colours as you would like to use. I used four colours; yellow, red, blue and green, so I put 20g of coconut in each bowl.
Add a small amount of food colouring to each bowl of coconut. Stir well with a small spoon until the colour is completely mixed in.
If you're using gel or powdered food colourings, you'll need to add a splash of water to each bowl to help the colouring coat the coconut. Try adding one teaspoon of water, then add another if you're still struggling.
Add more colouring if wanted, until your coconut is coloured to the required shades.
Once you have coloured all of your coconut, tip it onto the lined baking tray and spread out into one layer. Try to keep the colours separate whilst they are still wet to avoid mixing.
Leave the tray out somewhere cool and dry, at a minimum overnight or for up to 24 hours until the coconut has completely dried. You may need to give it a little stir once or twice to ensure that all of the coconut gets a chance to dry out.
Once the coconut is dry, you can mix the colours together. This is a lot of fun, so you may want to get the kids involved at this point!
We mixed ours on the tray, then tipped the sprinkles into a small tupperware box.
Store the dried sprinkles in an air-tight container until ready to use. Make sure they are completely dry if you want them to last - you can leave the lid off for a few more hours if you're not sure they are quite ready when you decant them.
As long as they are completely dry the sprinkles should last for quite a while when stored in an air-tight container, as they are nothing but dried coconut and colouring.
You can use these sprinkles to decorate cakes and biscuits, add them to yogurt, throw them on ice cream or a banana split (they'd be perfect for my banana hot dogs!) or sprinkle over a cream cheese topped bagel - I'd love to hear how you'd use yours!
Here are some of the recipes I've used these rainbow sprinkles for:
And also some sprinkle mix colour ideas - you'll find more recipe ideas for using these sprinkles in each of these posts too:
Homemade Coconut Sprinkle Mixes
Halloween Coconut Sprinkle Mixes
For more fun rainbow food ideas and recipes, check out the rainbow food ideas section here on the Eats Amazing blog or follow my Rainbow Food Pinterest board for gorgeous rainbow ideas from all over the web!
Happy sprinkle making!
Grace
Homemade Rainbow Coconut Sprinkles
Ingredients
- 80 g desiccated coconut
- natural food colourings
Instructions
- Line a baking tray with greaseproof or baking paper.
- Measure out your coconut, then split between small china or glass bowls in as many colours as you would like to use. I used four colours; yellow, red, blue and green, so I put 20g of coconut in each bowl.
- Add a small amount of food colouring to each bowl of coconut. Stir well with a small spoon until the colour is completely mixed in.
- If you're using gel or powdered food colourings, you'll need to add a splash of water to each bowl to help the colouring coat the coconut. Try adding one teaspoon of water, then add another if you're still struggling.
- Add more colouring if wanted, until your coconut is coloured to the required shades.
- Once you have coloured all of your coconut, tip it onto the lined baking tray and spread out into one layer. Try to keep the colours separate whilst they are still wet to avoid mixing.
- Leave the tray out somewhere cool and dry, at a minimum overnight or for up to 24 hours until the coconut has completely dried. You may need to give it a little stir once or twice to ensure that all of the coconut gets a chance to dry out.
- Once the coconut is dry, you can mix the colours together. We mixed ours on the tray, then tipped the sprinkles into a small tupperware box.
- Store the dried sprinkles in an air-tight container until ready to use. Make sure they are completely dry if you want them to last - you can leave the lid off for a few more hours if you're not sure they are quite ready when you decant them.
Video
Notes
If you want to try making your own rainbow sprinkles, please pin this post so you can find it again!
CaroleHeidi says
I wouldn't worry about the E-numbers too much. They're just names that have been given to 'chemicals' that are approved as safe to eat and include natural chemicals as well as man-made ones. For example E948 is oxygen! E160c is Paprika, E300 is vitamin C, E330 is citric acid.
Obviously some are better for you than others but they can genuinely be 'natural'!
Grace Hall says
Thank you, that's great to know and very reassuring to hear!
Reena says
I also make these for sprinkles. But use different methods sometimes. First mix color and some essence Into the coconuts. for example in pink color i use strawberry essence. Than bake in low heat in the oven. And after that if i want that in too powdery way what i do is grind it.
Grace Hall says
Thank you, that's a great idea to use flavourings as well and I must try grinding them for a finer sprinkle mix!