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Make Homemade Sprinkles with only a few ingredients. You can customize the color combinations, shapes and lengths! Make big batches and give them to your friends during the holidays; OR make them for yourself to top your favorite cupcakes, cakes and baked goods.
My favorite thing to do in every single city I visit is head straight to local grocery stores. A few years ago when I went to Copenhagen, I found the prettiest selection of sprinkles. And then there was another time I was in Milan and found other pretty sprinkles. Truly the best color combos exist over seas.
Unfortunately I haven’t been back to Copenhagen nor Milan so I figured there must be a way to customize my own sprinkles mixes at home. Well, I figured it out! YAY!
What Goes Into Homemade Sprinkles
This is what you’ll need to make homemade sprinkles
- Water. Yep! Straight from the facet.
- Meringue Powder. Technically you can absolutely use raw egg whites. But I find it messy and absurd. Meringue powder is my favorite. You can buy it online or at your local craft or baking store.
- Powdered Sugar.
- Food Coloring Gels. I have this kit from Americolor, but you can use any food coloring gels you like.
Design Your Color Combination
In this instance, if you’ve ever taken a color theory class, it will be very helpful. If you’ve never painted and combined paint colors, Google will help! Here’s what I wanted to combine:
- Mauve =ย 3 drops of brown, 3 drops of pink, 1 drop of red, black and blue.
- White = zero food coloring.
- Peach = 2 drops of brown.
But truly, the sky is the limit. And Google will help you figure out what colors you need to combine.
How to Make Homemade Sprinkles
- Combine the meringue powder, sifted powdered sugar and 5 tablespoons of water.
- Beat it with the paddle attachment until it’s totally combined and smooth. If you don’t have a stand-up mixer, you could use an electric hand mixer.
- If needed, add more water. You really don’t want it too too stiff or else it’ll be nearly impossible to pipe out. You want it to the be the texture of toothpaste.
- Depending on how many colors you’re making, divide the mixture to small bowls.ย
- Add the colors and mix vigorously. As a result, you’ll end up with a super cohesive mixture.ย
- And then, divide the colors amongst piping bags fitted with a #2 round tip.ย
- Pipe them out onto baking sheets with sheets of parchment paper.ย
- Allow them to dry for about 2 hours. If your mixture is super wet, it might need to dry overnight.
- Cut them into whatever size you like! I like to make them about 1/2-inch long.
- Mix them up together to create your sprinkle mix.ย
- Store in an airtight container; these will stay good when stored in an airtight container in a cool place for up to 1 year.
Tips and Tricksย
- Get a friend to help you pipe these out. It’ll go much quicker than if you’re doing this by yourself.
- Buy meringue powder. You can technically do them with egg whites but I find liquid egg whites so annoying and petty.
- Use the correct piping tip. I used a No. 2 Wilton Piping Tip.
- These are the piping bags I bought and they worked great.
Fun Tip:
If you go to Michaelโs, you can use their coupon (that you can find on their app) and get a discount of 40% off your meringue powder purchase.
Homemade Sprinkles
Ingredients
To Make the Sprinkle Base:
- 3 tablespoons meringue powder
- 4 cups powdered sugar, sifted
- 6 tablespoons water, divided
The Pale Peach Color:
- 1 teeny tiny drop of brown
The Mauve Color:
- 2 teeny drops brown
- 2 teeny drops pink
- 1 teeny tiny drop blue
- 1 teeny tiny drop red
- 1 teeny tiny drop black
Instructions
Prep:
- Line 3 to 4 baking sheets with parchment paper. Figure out how many colors you would like to make and fit the piping tips to the piping bags. If youโre like me and only have one #2 piping tip, then you might have to do one colored-batch at a time.
- I found the best piping tips to use were #2 from Wiltonโitโs small and round. (There are other brands that have sizes are similar to their #2.)
To Make the Sprinkle Base:
- To the bowl of a stand-up mixer, with the whisk attachment, add the meringue powder, powdered sugar and 5-6 tablespoons of water. Beat for 5 minutes, scraping down the sides as necessary. It should be pretty thick but if itโs super dry, then add a teaspoon or two of water and beat once more until smooth. This will depend on the moisture in the air. Most days I have to add an additional one to two tablespoons of water. You want the consistency to be like toothpaste.
- Divide the sprinkle base into three bowls (or however many colors youโre making).
To Make the Pale Peach Color:
- Since I use food coloring gels, I like to use a toothpick to help me take out a small drop/swipe of food coloring and adding it to the bases. And then obviously used spoons to mix them in.
- Add a swipe of brown and mix until smooth. If it isnโt dark enough, you can add an additional swipe or two of brown. The color should be peach/baby orange.
To Make the Mauve Color:
- Add all of those colors to one of the bowls to make the mauve color. Mix until smooth.
To Pipe Out the Sprinkles:
- Add the first color to the piping bag thatโs fitted with the piping tip. Pipe out long lines, doing the best you can with making them straight. Even if theyโre a little crooked, it doesnโt matter since weโre gonna chop them up.
- Repeat with the other colors: white and mauve. Allow to dry for 2 to 3 hours.
- Chop the lines of meringue mixture in 1/4th of an inch sprinkle pieces. Mix all the colors together and use as you like. I divided them into little bottles and put them on everything from these ice cream cones to cakes!
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
If you make these Homemade Sprinkles, let me know on Instagram!ย
Put sprinkles on all of these recipes! Sprinkles truly make anything better and cuter:
How long can I use it without expire? Actually I want to sell sprinkles local so should I add any preserve to store sprinkles for at least 6 months. And how to store them in tropical weather does it need to put in fridge?
have no idea sorry! they should last about 6 months but when it comes to selling products i’m unsure.
I tried these and the colour bled onto my Swiss meringue buttercream and within an hour they dissolved! Is there a way to prevent that from happening?
did you use americ color gel? what brand did you use?
Hi,
I love the idea of making my own sprinkles , and Iโm going to do that right away,
If I like to substitute the meringue powder with egg whites- how much do I need?
Thank you
hi there! sorry not sure. never tested it with egg whites.
love being able to make these at home and know what actually goes into sprinkles, thank you!
These sprinkles are so cute, I never thought of making them before but I really love how they turned out.
Hello! I was wondering how long your homemade sprinkles kept for? These are adorable! I’d like to make some and send them in my ice cream care package. Please let me know. Thank you!
They honestly have lasted me a year. I still have these and they taste great!
I’ve made the sprinkles from this page before, and used a tip that she recommends where you can pipe out multiple sprinkle lines at one time: http://bravetart.com/recipes/ChocolateSprinklesGF
Oh that’s cool. That’s super smart. I need to get one of those! It’d save a bunch of time, for sure.
It was a little tricky because with the thickness of the batter/liquid sprinkles(? haha) it sometimes got stuck, but it still worked pretty well. I found the tip for cheap at a tiny local baking store. They had a whole bin of random tips.
Wonder if you could make dots, like the colorful ones you buy in strips?
You definitely could! I wanted to try this out. I will say that this recipe might be too thick to do that with so I would give it a try and then if it’s too thick, add a teaspoon or two more of water.