Experimental Baking (Failure)

Last time I was in KLU, I visited my favourite shop there and bought a leaf-shaped cookie cutter. As I'm very anti E-numbers and MNGs, I wanted to create red or orange leaves using a natural substance. After doing some online research which basically only came up with "beetroot" (I love this vegetable, but didn't really feel like using it for something sweet), I had the brainwave to use hibiscus tea. So much for the theory...

I prepared a really strong infusion and let it cool. I decided to divide the dough, a basic shortcrust recipe, into two parts and dye half of it with matcha powder and blend some of the hibiscus concentrate into the other half. I had to use several spoons to make an impact (pale purple), which of course totally changed the consistency of the dough. Hmmm. I added some more flour and sugar and put both doughs into the fridge to rest for half an hour.

When I rolled them out on my worktop, the lilac coloured hibiscus-infused dough was really rubbery and gooey. The good thing was that unlike normal ubaked shortcrust dough it didn't crumble, nor stick at all, but could be lifted in one piece like a plasticine pancake.

The result was pretty boring and inedible and even a jam-filling didn't help much to enhance these bland cookies, the lilac half of which ended up in the bin.

Any suggestions for a natural food colour (red or yellow) that is a) not savoury and b) preferably in powder form?