July 23rd. Does that day ring any bells?
It rings ours! It’s National Sprinkle Day and if you know me, you know I am a huge fan of sprinkling sprinkles on my macs which is why I am going to teach you how to make homemade sprinkles. For evidence, just check here:
Or here, these are our Ice Cream Macarons
We also show you when and how to add sprinkles to your macarons.
Yes, you could say, I’m all in for sprinkles.
So when we were doing our planning and we found out that day was fast approaching we wanted to join in the fun, but not just sprinkling sprinkles on everything, but by making some of our own. Yep, you can make your own sprinkles if you need to match a certain color, or need dots but only have rods (the long ones), or need rods and only have dots. You get the picture. Making sprinkles at home was actually so fun to do. We created colors that we couldn’t find in stores and turned out several batches that are perfect for our upcoming projects. Homemade sprinkles also taste amazing. Bonus!
What you will need:
Ingredients listed in recipe (below)
Sifter
Two mixing bowls
Spatula
Hand mixer
Gel coloring of choice
Wax paper/parchment
Wilton tip #4
Wilton bag + coupler
(You could easily use a tipless bag; just cut your hole very small.)
The general idea is to pipe very thin lines across your parchment paper, then let them dry overnight into hardened lines, which you’ll then break into sprinkles. We lay it all out for you in our recipe, but thought you’d like the video (above) of us slowly piping our lines. Don’t let them touch, and make sure your mixture is stiff enough that the lines don’t flatten out and touch each other.
The mixture will turn one shade lighter as it dries, so plan accordingly.
Other Tips:
- One batch makes plenty of sprinkles. I would say enough to make 1 million cookies. Give or take.
- I used four full sheets of pre-cut parchment paper when piping the lines. May I strongly suggest piping onto parchment, as it made the breaking/cutting step super simple. Also, I stacked my trays sideways onto the other for drying. Which brings me to my next point…
- They need to sit overnight to completely dry. You will know they are dry when the lines of sprinkles can pop off the parchment, and move around easily.
- You can pipe them in lines or dots. Both work really well.
Homemade Sprinkles
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar, sifted
- 1 1/2 Tbsp. water
- 1 Tbsp. light corn syrup
- 1/2 tsp. clear vanilla extract
- gel food coloring (make sure it is gel)
Instructions
- Sift 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar into a medium-sized mixing bowl.
- In a separate mixing bowl, place 1 cup of the sifted powdered sugar, and add 1 Tbsp. of water, the vanilla and light corn syrup. Using a hand mixer, combine well.
- Add remaining powdered sugar 1/4 cup at a time, and then enough water to create a thick paste, but not so thick you won't be able to pipe it. You just don't want it to be runny, because if it is too liquidy, it will flatten out when you go to pipe it and won't be a thin line.
- At this point you can divide into different bowls for different colors, or just add one color to the bowl. Beat with hand mixer until color is completely mixed. I wanted the ombré look so I added the lightest color to the bowl, piped a small amount, added more color and so on.
- Place parchment paper on a baking sheet.
- Load mixture into piping bag with the tip and pipe into thin lines. Pipe back and forth, over and over until parchment paper is covered with thin lines. Make sure lines are not touching.
- Let sit overnight to dry.
Once dry, you can break or cut your sprinkles one of two ways:
- Arrange rows of lines close together and use a knife to cut them the desired length. Note: Ours kind of went every which way.
- Move all the lines together and fold the parchement over the rows of sprinkles like a burrito and crack them in your hands. Use that same parchment as a funnel to pour into airtight container for storing.
Storage
- Sprinkles will last a few months in a airtight container.
I want to hear from you: a comment or review!