How to Make Your Own Sanding Sugar
Sanding Sugar was once limited to special events at our house. But now that we have mastered making it, there is always a rainbow of color choices. The girls like to sugar rim their juice glasses or smoothies. And of course being able to create a piece of art work on your toast or pancakes never gets old!
Try making our Mock Margarita’s and using your new Sanding Sugar!
Ingredients:
- White Sugar (1/2 cup per color)
- Plastic Ziploc Baggie (1 per color)
- Food Coloring
- Lined Baking Sheet
- Rolling Pin
Directions:
- Measure 1/2 cup sugar and place in your plastic baggie
- Measure 1 cap full food coloring into sugar filled baggie (use less for softer color)
- Seal baggie and squish bag until all sugar if coated with food coloring, pressing down to break clumps
- Dump colored sugar onto lined baking sheet
- Break apart until in a single layer
- Bake at 120 (lowest temp) for 10 minutes
- Remove from heat and break apart again
- Gather edges of paper on baking sheet and pour colored sugar back into the baggie
- Remove as much air as possible by rolling up from bottom before sealing baggie
- Press with rolling pin or other object on baggie until all lumps are broken up
- Store in an airtight container
Sanding Sugar is awesome on French toast, bagels, etc. Anything that you would sprinkle sugar on, try one of the colored batches for a unique visual effect.
Love the colors. Fun to sprinkle on food!
Thank you for sharing. This sounds like fun.
I have always wanted to do. Thanks for telling us how to color the sugar
Looks like a lot of fun. Love the vivid colors.
Wow! these are so awesome and look prettier than the ones that they sell at the stores.
Love these colors, will need to give this a try
Wow didn’t know it was used around the rim of the glass
I will be making various colors for Easter Cookie decorating.
This sugar is new to me, will have to give it a try
My daughter would love this, and so would I! Thank you for sharing.
This looks like lots of fun to make with the kids. Love how pretty this looks!
This is awesome, I have never thought about making my own sanding sugar before! It is so easy too, thank you so much for sharing!!
I never thought of making my own before, and this looks so easy. It will certainly be a fun project for me and the kids to do, and then sprinkle them on sugar cookies!
This would make things very festive for holidays!
I have never even thought of trying this! Great idea!
This is so cool and a good recipe
this is awesome
Thank you for sharing. This is a great idea.
Such a cute and easy idea. I wanna try this for sure.
Can you use liquid or gel food coloring?
Love this idea. I would like to make purple. I used 1 drop blue & 1 drop red. It didn’t come out purple. I trying to color 1/4 cup raw sugar using liquid color. Any suggestions?
Did you mix the color before you put in the sugar? I mixed the colors in a tablespoon and then put it in the sugar and was able to get purple. I also dried in my dehydrator on the low setting, rather than the oven. So, if you have one give it a try. Thanks for this idea.
Would this work with liquid food coloring as well?
I so wanna try this. I have a question though. Won’t the sugar turn into caramel in over ten mins? Haven’t tried it as yet but just wondering.
I made some today using raw sugar, 350 degree for 10 min and it turned out perfect. Also used parchment paper but divided in half so easy to pour into zip lock bag.
I like it with the raw sugar too!
Whenever I see this it reminds me of sugar cookies. I don’t know why it’s called sanding sugar though.
Thank you so much! I will save so much money and be able to get the colors that I want!
Now that’s a super cute idea. I think this is even something I could do, LOL. Thanks for the post!
Cake decorator here! This is gonna save me soon much money! Thanks!
Sanding sugar is the “GLITTER” of food! The more of it the better!
I think x-mas when I see colored sugars. It reminds me of holiday cookies.
great idea for foodies and for kids to do with their parents
This would be fun for my kids’ playdates.
This sounds like a fun idea. My grandchildren will love it. It also sounds pretty easy to do. Thank you for sharing
I love this! We can use these for cupcakes, cookies etc!
Going to make this and use it this Christmas for sugar cookies! Thanks for sharing it!
this sounds easy to make and the kids would love it
This is such a great and easy to follow recipe!
This is neat and I adore the colors,so easy to do,I’ve got all kinds of ideas now lol
Thanks for the recipe. I always wondered how they made it.
Hi! Thanks a lot for the recipe, i just wanted to know the food coloring you used is Gel or Liquid?
Not gel, liquid only please
Interesting my son would love me forever if we did this together and made some sanding sugar lol than I’d have to pay for it for the sugar high that he’d be on lol, but it would be fun though.
Thank you so much for posting this. The directions sound super easy and making our own will save money as well.
Very neat! I’ve never thought of making my own. Thanks for sharing!
This is great! Thank you so much for sharing!
I will never buy it again. Thanks so much!
This is so awesome, I am so glad you shared this I will definitely be making it like this instead of paying all that money for the same thing!!
I’ve never heard of it before. Obviously, I’m not a baker. I guess that’s the stuff that goes on holiday cookies. Very pretty.
THIS IS AMAZING! I’ve always wanted to try using sanding sugar but it’s expensive. Thanks for this tip!
this sound like a fun way of using sugar
This could be so useful-especially for holidays and birthdays. Thank you for the step by step directions.
This is very nice to learn about and it sounds really easy to make, thanks a lot for sharing!
Thank you so much for sharing this 🙂 I am so excited to try this with my daughter and possibly incorporate it I to my granddaughter’s next birthday party!
I can imagine this sugar would work great for decorating sugar cookies!
This is great! A nice way to decorate and make it pretty.
thank you , it looks so easy , i will try it soon
I dunno, that seems like an awful lot of work (not to mention getting food coloring all over my hands – which always happens).
Super easy! I love that they like to rim their smoothie glasses how cute!
I just love this quick and fun colorful sand~ My son is six and loves to do fun stuff like this too.
This is fantastic! Thank you for sharing the recipe. It will be great to have for the holidays.
This is ingenious… I’m bookmarking for when we do sugar cookies around the holidays!
Awesome! Can’t wait to do this with my to youngins lol! They will absolutely love it at ages 6 & 4!! Thanks for the great info and ALL that you do!
WOW! I wouldn’t have thought it could so easy to make your own. Their are so many desserts and drinks that can be dressed up with that extra specially effect. With an customizable color palette, I’ll be using this often. Thanks!
Wow, how fun! This is really neat. My crafty side is burning up. I seriously really want to make this, so thank you for sharing! 🙂
I Love this & will be using it quite often!! Thank You for sharing this!! 🙂
This is very easy. My niece and nephews will enjoy making these colorful sanding sugar with me.
This is a great recipe for parties! I think they’d look great on sugar cookies, and cocktail drinks as well.
This is a great “recipe” to keep on hand when it comes to decorating baked goods, especially for the holidays! Sometimes you just don’t want to buy a huge (and expensive) specialty color but now with a little time I can make my own in whatever shade I fancy.
Thank you for the how to, I can’t wait to experiment with my own sanding sugar!
Sanding sugar sounds like a great way to beautify a drink at a party!
I love this! Knowing how to make my own colored sanding sugar will be really helpful when decorating cookies this holiday season!