I am sure they have been doing it for centuries, "they" being either people without food coloring or people who hate food coloring and "it" being coloring things with beet juice. Fabrics and paints were dyed naturally by the Egyptians and Chinese, and right here in America, betalain is produced from a specially bred "high pigment beet" to be used as a natural food dye in the food industry.
I have accidentally "dyed" many things with beet juice, towels, tile grout, carpets, but had yet to use it for coloring something on purpose. So when I was recently in the throws of pickling some beets, it occurred to me that they could be used to liven up the butter-cream frosting that was at that very moment being 
whipped up in my Kitchen Aid. I did a quick test by squeezing a handful of beets skins into a tiny bowl with a tablespoon of frosting. This resulted in a beautiful, soft pink and no beet flavor which was exactly what I wanted for the cupcakes Chris was making (yep, and he makes the best cupcakes on the planet). So I squeezed away (squozed? squeezeded?), and whipped away until we got the perfect color. What simple pleasure I get out of this discovery, to be able to use a food I love to naturally enhance the beauty of another food I love makes me giddy. No, I'm not totally nuts. I just have this crazy thing about beets.
Did you know that the color goes away? It's like amazing disappearing ink!
After a couple of days in the tupperware, we had pretty "swirls" of pink on our last one... then, a coupld of days after that, the frosting was ALL white!
Amazing disappearing BEET ink!
Posted by: Fatemeh | April 20, 2005 at 11:27 AM
Woah, I did notice some lighter flecks in the frosting the day after but ate them too damn fast to see it turn white. That is really cool. Anyone have any idea why that would be?? Water soluble? Colorfast? Magic?
Posted by: Molly | April 20, 2005 at 11:34 AM
No, no. Use beet juice! Whose cupcakes last more than a couple days?! :)
Pretty in pink, Molly!
Posted by: caryn | April 20, 2005 at 04:05 PM
I too had noticed that the color was starting to disappear. It was especially cool when they had that swirled effect that Fatemeh was talking about.
I wish I'd made Molly take a picture. But instead, I ate it.
Posted by: Chris | April 21, 2005 at 08:10 AM
I was kinda afraid to eat mine b/c I hadn't kept it refrigerated and, well, I'm a wimp.
Posted by: Fatemeh | April 22, 2005 at 01:06 PM
Your beet fixation is spreading....I made a beet and goat cheese salad a few weeks ago. (Yes, Molly, I DID cook a vegetable.) Curiously, I noticed that frosting is not the only thing which turns pink after eating beet salad 3 days in a row.
Posted by: Julie | April 25, 2005 at 09:51 AM
That is soo funny! My Mom wouldn't let us have food colouring when I was a kind so for our birthdays we could have white, brown or pink! She used beet juice! People always think that's nutty when I tell them!
Posted by: becky | August 15, 2005 at 10:37 AM
Do you mind if i refer this post to another blog, i think naturally pink icing is so special? thanks for a great read! now i am hungry!
Posted by: tash at poppyseeds | March 09, 2007 at 10:28 PM
Hi there - just found your blog today when searching for more info on natural food colouring. I have used beet powder, turmeric and alfalfa powder to colour my cupcake frosting! With the beet powder, I didn't notice any fading of the colour, but maybe if I had kept them for longer it would have happened. I had heard of that before. Here is a link to some pics of mine!
http://lemonholistic.wordpress.com/2007/04/04/wishing-you-a-colourful-easter-naturally/
Posted by: cordelia | August 18, 2007 at 02:41 PM