How to Make Your Own Sparkling Sugar
We have step by step instructions with pictures that show you how to make your own sparkling sugar in any color you like.
We use colored sugar for a lot of our projects. Since the stuff at the crafts stores can get pricey, and since you are limited in color choices, we decided to start making our own. It couldn’t be easier. When we saw that you could make your own glitter sprinkles, we knew we had to try it.
You will need:
- White Granulated Sugar or Raw Sugar
- Food Coloring
- Small Plastic Bags
- Tin Foil
- Cookie Sheet
- Sifter
You can make Sparkling Sugar any color you want. You only need sugar, food coloring and an oven. In these pictures we used regular granulated white sugar. As you will see later in the post, if you want a more dimensional sparkling sugar, you can use Raw Sugar.
Pour some sugar into a small plastic bag. You can make as much as you need, this is 1/2 cup sugar.
Add the food coloring to the bag. Seal the bag and work the food coloring into the sugar. It will take a combination of shaking and massaging to get the sugar fully colored.
Here is our blue and pink colored sugar. This colored sugar looks pretty just as it is and could be used in cookie or cake decorating projects at this point. But baking the sugar a tiny bit really adds some sparkle to the sugar and only takes a few minutes more. We highly recommend completing the drying process in the oven.
Here is a Two Sisters Crafting tip …. do not bake the colored sugar like we did the first time—spread out in a thin layer on a cookie sheet. After only 4 minutes in a 250 degree oven we had the melted mess that you see here in the bottom picture. Yuck!!! Not very pretty and the smell of burnt sugar is so terrible. Don’t do this!!!
Do this instead. Create a small trough with a piece of aluminum foil and place it on a cookie sheet. Pour the colored sugar in a mound in the aluminum foil trough. Place the cookie sheet in a 250 degree oven. Set the timer for 4 minutes. Check the sugar. If it is not melting and you don’t smell any burnt sugar, try another 2 minutes. Check again. It should be drying out now and have a shiny “sparkly” look. If it hasn’t started melting on the sides, try another minute in the oven. We ended up baking this sugar for 8 minutes. But at the end of the process you need to be constantly checking to make sure it hasn’t started melting.
Here is the cooled sparkling sugar. It has been dried and the crystals are very slightly melted which gives it the “sparkling” look. You will need to run it through a sieve before using it.
Here is what we sifted out of our finished blue Sparkling Sugar, little tiny pieces of food coloring and melted specks of sugar.
And here is our blue Sparkling Sugar. So pretty and so sparkly.
If you want a more course sparkling sugar you can use Raw Sugar. Here is the consistency we got with Raw Cane Sugar.
Making homemade sparkling sugar is the easiest process in the world and we will never buy pre-made colored sugar again. It’s so nice to be able to create colored sugars the exact shade that you need instead of settling for the generic colors available at the store.
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I love this recipe! It will save me a considerable sum of money. Thanks so much!
Thank you for this! I have made my own coloured sugar but was missing the sparkling bit! I would like to know what type of sieve you use for sifting the sugar afterwards.
  What I made my coloured sugar I used pint canning jars. I put the sugar and gel color inside put on the lid and just shake the heck out of it. Then add as needed to deepen the color.Â
 For the person asking about the color changing with baking, I use my home made coloured sugar to coat walnut balls and bake, i have never noticed a color change.
I made pink and yellow sugar to decorate my glasses for lemonade mimosas. They came out perfect! Thank you so much for sharing!!! I used a toaster oven as I was too lazy to turn on the large conventional oven…I feel it was easier to monitor so that the sugar doesn’t burn.
I followed your directions and I have beautiful, sparkling, edible glitter! Easy as pie! Thanks so much!
I have been making cream cheese peppermints for many years. I roll them in sugar before I put them in molds. Would this sparkling sugar work on them or do you think the color would mix/melt in with the mint? Making them for my daughter’s wedding.
Hi! I’d like to make white glitter for a cake. This may be a stupid question, but would plain white sugar serve for that purpose? And if so, do you think that this oven-drying process would make it more sparkly? I’ve looked online for a while, but can only find either edible glitter to buy, or tutorials for making colored glitter, like this one. I could make it a different color, but I’d have to buy food coloring, which I would use that much, and is rather expensive where I live (I’m an expat living in SE Asia). Any thoughts? Thanks in advance!
Hi – you definitely can use regular sugar but it is not as sparkly as the raw sugar. But you will have a pretty colored sugar to decorate with.
I am a professional cake decorator.. I’ve tried this before didn’t work I used organic sugar and bam 4 minutes done for me beautiful and sparkled. Thank you for sharing.
M. Stone
Hello, I’m assuming as this is an American site you’re working in Fahrenheit? Im in Australia and I pumped my oven to 250° Celsius …
Hi Sarah, yes it is Fahrenheit. Sorry, we should have been more clear.
thanks for pointing that out, otherwise I too would have put my oven to 250. I see the recipe still hasn’t been altered.
This is a great idea,I’m suprised I never thought of it myself as I use the same process to make my own bath salts …doh!
Hi! I’m thrilled to have found your site and this particular post. I’m wondering – in the photos, it looks like you were able to make the coarser sparkling sugar in white, using the organic cane sugar. What’s confusing me is that the organic cane sugar I find everywhere isn’t white, so I’m not sure how you got it to be white! Does baking it alone do that? Thanks for clarifying!
Hi! In the picture that is regular sugar … we were just trying to show how regular white sugar can be turned into the blue and pink sparkling sugar.
ya’ll did everything right and I did everything wrong. I used Icing color which adds virtually no moisture. and I used my Silpat which kinda wicks moisture from the bottom. As I sat for like 15min with nothing happening I realized I needed a little moisture for sugar to start melting.
So if anyone is trying this out – follow their directions, use aluminum foil and liquid or gel coloring. Since I used Icing color, I had to add a tiny bit of water (~1/4tsp) and voila! it did exactly as you said.
sweet 🙂 thanks!
Do you have a way to make silver sugar?
Hi Anne, we haven’t had any luck with making a silver. We have only managed to make gray. Sorry!
Gun arabic turns silver when done correctly: http://www.wikihow.com/Make-Edible-Glitter
That’s good to know. Thanks!
If you would like silver you can use the the silver airbrush coloring.
Great idea! We are going to have to try that!
I going to put it on raw cookies and bake, as per the recipe. Will the dry sugar burn?
Hi Pamela, it shouldn’t burn. It might discolor a little tint bit, but that’s all. We did what you are talking about on our Frozen Marble Cookies. Here’s a link if you want to see them. https://www.twosisterscrafting.com/elsas-frozen-fractal-sugar-cookies/
What if you don’t have a sifter?
Hi Monica – you could try to sift through by hand and take any of the big chunks out.
I am a chocolatier and used oil based coloring and it worked also!
How can you store this once made? And how long will it last?
Hi Erin – if you allow it to dry completely before you store it in an airtight container. It should be fine for many many months.
CAN I USE GRANULATED RAW DEMERARA SUGAR OR MAKE IT TO CASTER ONE?
We have only ever made the sparkling sugar with white granulated sugar. My assumption would be that it would work with Demerara sugar but you might have to work at getting the color right since Demerara sugar has a brownish color to it. If you try it, please let us know how it turns out.
Okay, so after I made this, my sister stuck the sugar in the fridge. It was by accident but, when I took the sugar out, it was sparkling( a little soggy but, i left it out for a while) and I didn’t even bake it! 😀
Cool – we’ll have to try that next time.
This is so cool! Definitely, trying this out! <3