Your childhood dreams have come true with this unicorn toast recipe made with easy all natural food dyes made from plants, fruit and spices.
So this happened.
If you’re like me, unicorn toast has been blowing up your Instagram feed. It’s everywhere. That being said, most versions are loaded with food coloring and artificial dyes. It takes a lot of dye to get color this vibrant! Don’t get me wrong, I use food colorings all the time. Heck, edible food paint is one of the most popular recipes on A Side of Sweet! Sometimes it’s fun to explore a natural alternative to food dyes though.
All of the colors you see in this post are completely natural. The dyes come from nature, using plants and fruits. It’s pretty cool and makes it extra special if you think about it.
I can’t take credit for the idea though. The woman who sparked the unicorn toast phenomenon that is taking over the internet is actually Adeline Waugh from Vibrant & Pure. I thought I’d try my hand at her coloring suggestions and share the results with all of you!
Surprisingly, my unicorn toast looks nothing like Adeline’s. The colors I got are a bit more muted, which I suspect is a difference in ingredients. I used turmeric powder instead of fresh turmeric root, which yielded a gorgeous yellow color instead of the orange you see in her photos. The only beet juice I could find at my local grocery store was a blend, so the pink also isn’t as vibrant as hers.
Unicorn toast isn’t cheap folks. The powders and tinctures used to make the toast can get expensive pretty quick. If you want to save some money, stick with freeze-dried fruits (Trader Joe’s carries these) and turmeric powder. For the fancy ingredients like chlorophyll drops and spirulina, a teeny bit goes a long way. You could make hundreds of slices of toast with the sizes sold on Amazon so you may consider it worth the investment.
That being said, I’m madly in love with the results. This would be such a fun party activity for a unicorn party. Whip up some large batches of each color and let your kiddos go nuts decorating.
You may be skeptical about a project like this, but it was so much fun to play around with the colored cream cheeses. I felt like a kid again. And don’t we all need a little magic in our lives?
If you want some ideas for getting started, here is how I achieved each of these looks:
Ombré toast:
Rainbow Striped Toast:
Galaxy Toast:
Watercolor Rainbow Toast:
Thanks so much for reading! For more Sweet in your life, you can find me on Instagram, Pinterest, and YouTube, or subscribe to receive a weekly email with new posts and musings from me.
Unicorn Toast with Natural Food Dyes
Your childhood dreams have come true with this unicorn toast recipe made with easy all natural food dyes made from plants, fruit and spices. Recipes adapted from Vibrant & Pure
- Prep Time: 20 minutes
- Cook Time: 3 minutes
- Total Time: 23 minutes
- Yield: 4 slices 1x
- Category: Breakfast
- Method: No bake
- Cuisine: American
Ingredients
Green All-Natural Dyed Cream Cheese Ingredients:
- 4 ounces (1/2 brick) cream cheese, softened
- Chlorophyll Drops or
- Spirulina Powder
Yellow All-Natural Dyed Cream Cheese Ingredients:
- 4 ounces (1/2 brick) cream cheese, softened
- Turmeric powder
Pink All-Natural Dyed Cream Cheese Ingredients:
- 4 ounces (1/2 brick) cream cheese, softened
- Freeze dried strawberries or
- Freeze dried raspberries or
- Strawberry powder
- Beet Juice
Light Purple All-Natural Dyed Cream Cheese Ingredients:
- 4 ounces (1/2 brick) cream cheese, softened
- Spirulina powder (optional)
- Freeze dried blueberries
Deep Purple All-Natural Dyed Cream Cheese Ingredients:
- 4 ounces (1/2 brick) cream cheese, softened
- Freeze dried blueberries
Slices of bread
8 ounces (1 package) cream cheese, softened
Toppings:
Instructions
Green All-Natural Dyed Cream Cheese Recipe:
- Combine 3-5 drops of chlorophyll with softened cream cheese and mix until smooth. If using spriulina powder, you’ll need about 1/2 teaspoon of powder per 4 ounces of cream cheese.
Yellow All-Natural Dyed Cream Cheese Recipe:
- Combine 2 teaspoons turmeric with softened cream cheese. Mix until smooth. Turmeric has a bitter taste, so do not add too much or you will be able to taste it when you eat your toast.
Pink All-Natural Dyed Cream Cheese Recipe:
- Combine 1 tablespoon of raspberry powder with softened cream cheese. Mix until combined. Add 2-4 teaspoons of beet juice to produce a brighter pink color. If using freeze dried fruit, start by crushing them in the bag with a rolling pin. Use a fine mesh strainer to strain out seeds and add strained dust to cream cheese.
Light Purple All-Natural Dyed Cream Cheese Recipe:
- Crush freeze dried blueberries in the bag with a rolling pin. Strain powder through a fine mesh sieve to remove seeds. Add 1/2 teaspoon of blueberry powder to softened cream cheese. For a more mauve purple, add 1/8 teaspoon of spirulina powder (optional).
Deep Purple All-Natural Dyed Cream Cheese Recipe:
- Crush freeze dried blueberries in the bag with a rolling pin. Strain powder through a fine mesh sieve to remove seeds. Add 1-2 teaspoons of blueberry powder to softened cream cheese.
Assemble the toast:
- Toast bread. Spread each slice with a layer of plain cream cheese.
- Place dollops of colored cream cheese onto toast. For ideas, watch my Youtube video embedded in this post or check out the pictures.
- Place toast slices in a warm oven (~150°F) for 2-3 minutes to allow cream cheese to further soften for easy spreading.
- Use the back of a spoon, a knife or a chopstick to spread and blend the cream cheese dollops. I tried all three and had the best results with a small espresso spoon. Just make sure you clean off the spoon when switching colors.
- Top with desired toppings such as edible glitter, sprinkles or edible stars.
To make the unicorn eyelashes:
- Use a pairing knife to slice open a piece of black licorice lengthwise. I found that the Red Vines brand worked best for this as it was a little dried and had well-defined ridges.
- Use a scissors to cut licorice into thin strips. Trim to desired length to make ‘eyelids’ and eyelashes. Place onto toast.
Love this recipe? Pin it for later!
This looks like such a fun idea! I love that your coloring is more muted…definitely more my style :). I was wondering if all the flavors go together well, especially if you add all the different cream cheeses on one piece of toast. I was just curious since you have turmeric, beet juice, and an assortment of fruits which sounds like an interesting combination of flavors.
Good question! Actually with the amounts that I added it doesn’t really affect to overall taste that much. I think the blueberry had the strongest taste actually, which was my favorite actually. The turmeric is only an issue if you add too much. I couldn’t really taste the spirulina powder or the chlorophyll drops.
★★★★★
One word to say: P E R F E C T I O N !
★★★★★
Excellent occupation for children and parents. I now know how to spend a rainy day off cheerfully 🙂 Oh, I sometimes make green pancakes and use spinach for color. Maybe can add a little spinach to get a bright green?
Love how your toast turned out!! Absolutely beautiful guide and pictures-well done girl 🙂
You might want to check out my unicorn toast post as well: http://livelifefullyalive.com/the-unicorn-toast/