August 18, 2010- Caramel is the dye that makes your yummy cake look the color it is! Caramel food color is the delicious looking color that lends a brown color to food. It is used mostly in cakes and cookies for appetizing color. The caramel brown coloring ranges from a yellowish color to deep brown. Golden brown is the most likable color of the all caramel food color shades. Caramel food coloring is a popularly used food additive as its brown color is absolutely inviting and makes the foods using it appear delicious.
Caramel food dye is used mostly in bakery and confectionery products like cakes, puddings, and desserts. Since deep brown color is often associated with deep brown colored base with delicious cake toppings, this color is used by the bakers and other packaged products extensively. Although lending an appetizing color to desserts and other food items is one of the main properties of the caramel food dye, but it also has emulsifying qualities and is therefore preferred over other regular food colorings and dyes.
While cakes, pastries, puddings and baked desserts are the most popular caramel food color uses, but there are other food products also that use the caramel food coloring. For example, soft drinks and alcoholic beverages. Certain coffee blends also use caramel content for additional flavor and color. Dark breads also have caramel content in them sometimes for the flavor and color.
We know that caramel food coloring has a nice pleasant color that makes food look more appealing and appetizing. But is it safe to consume? Before we go on to understand if the caramel food coloring is harmful or not, let us understand that caramel food coloring has been categorized in different classes on the basis of manufacturing process. The classes of caramel food dye are:
Class I - Plain Caramel Food ColorAll these classes based on the constituents used in the production are used in a variety of food products that they are suitable for. Usually the degree of color of these classes also varies. For example the class IV - Sulfite Ammonia Process Caramel Color, is the deepest of all. But talking of the caramel food coloring allergies and harmful reaction, there not any as such. It is generally considered to be a harmless food additive that may have certain allergies based on the specific ingredients used in a particular manufacturing process. Otherwise it is absolutely safe. Plain caramel color contains the least number of foreign ingredients and is therefore the safest of all.