DIY Sprinkles

Make your own personalised sprinkles using this easy recipe – perfect for any baking project.

Ingredients:

• 1 large egg white
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 1 and 1/4 cups (250 grams) tightly packed icing sugar
• food colours

– If using metric cups, reduce volume measures by 1 tablespoon for every cup of dry or liquid ingredients – 

Equipment:

• Standing or hand-held electric mixer
• piping bags with small round tips (I recommend tip #3)

Directions:

Before we begin we are going to choose our colour scheme and get out equipment ready. Three to four colours is a manageable amount. I’m going with an electric spring assortment today.

When you’ve chosen your colours prepare a piping bag for each. The best tip for a standard thickness of sprinkle is the Wilton #3 or it’s equivalent.

Whip the egg white and lemon juice until firm peaks form.

Add the icing sugar gradually to avoid it spraying out as you mix. We are going for a fairly firm but pipe-able texture. You want it to keep a nice round line that doesn’t puddle at all.

Divide the icing evenly and add colour to each. These ones have one drop of gel colour each. They dry a little darker than the wet mix looks but not much so make sure it’s the colour you want. I find gel colours the best and most intense but if you want to make sprinkles using natural colours then use what you like. Just be careful of adding too much liquid colour as it can soften the mix.

Transfer the coloured icings to the piping bags and you’re ready to go. Lay out large sheets of baking paper and pipe out lines until you run out of each colour. It’s a lot of lines. Your hand might get a bit tired. Some of your lines might be wobbly. It’s all good.

Set the sheets of lines somewhere they can dry for 6 to 8 hours. If it’s humid this could take longer so make sure you don’t need to use the sprinkles straight away just in case.

Test the “doneness” of the sprinkles by snapping the end off one of the lines. The sprinkles are ready when the piped lines are hard and dry all the way to the centre. You can tell when they’re done because they will go from getting crushed to snapping cleanly when you try to break a bit off. The next part is a bit tedious. With clean dry hands pick up each “stick” and snap it into 1/4 to 1/2 inch pieces, depending on your preference. Discard the lumpy ends and any overly wobbly sections.

You will start out doing it carefully. After a while you will start doing bigger sections at a time. I like variations in the length of the pieces which is good. The sticks are brittle so will break with very little pressure. Be careful to break them rather than crush them.

Mix up the different colours and boom. You’re done.

The sprinkles are ready to use! To store, keep them in an airtight container in a cool dry place. They should last for ages but if they start to look powdery and white or the colour fades then just whip up some more!

Cook’s Notes:

• Don’t worry if some of your lines are crooked – just break them up as best you can and discard any bits that are too wonky.
• If you have good piping skills try adding drop flowers, leaves or other shapes to add some awesome variation to your mixes.
• Making your own sprinkles is great if you have a particular project that needs to be colour (or flavour) matched

 – These sprinkles will keep well in an airtight container for several months – 

Adapted from Kitchy Kitchen and Alana Jones-Mann.

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