What kind of color do you use when paiting on fondant with a brush?

I know about paiting with luster dust, but how about when you paint with regular colors like black, red, green, etc ?

On the last cake competition on TV I saw the oriental lady paiting black on the fondant.

What kind do you think was being used? Thinned down concentrated gel paste? Or other?

Thanks.

when i have painted on fondant, i have coloured royal and watered it down and used that. other times i have just watered down the colouring (gel most times) and used that, or if you are after a very vibrant colour the straight colouring is fine too.

Buena suerte

When I use the color gels to paint, I thin it down with vodka. I find that if you thin it down with water, it makes it really tacky and it takes awhile to dry. Using an alcohol based product to thin it down allows it to dry rather quickly.

Where was this question yesterday when I was dealing with a hard to please customer who changed from wanting gold painted fondant to red!!! I tried using straight color and it was HORRIBLE!!!!!!!!!!! Thanks for the tip on the vodka, I actually used a product made by Wilton called brush on color, it is like edible paint basically and they sale it in a lot of colors it worked great and gave me the effect I needed to please the women...I hope, I guess I will see tomorrow when delivery takes place
Erica

I am a big fan of painting on fondant...I've got several cakes in my photos that are painted, the most recent was my Uncle Same 4th of July cake.

I've used colored petal dust and thinning out gel with alchol. For me, I've had best results with thinned down gel. The colors went on smoother. The petal dust would look grainy at times.

I would not recomend the wilton paint on colors. I bought some and tried it, but the results left a lot to be desired....becides, you all have some gel color laying around in every color of the rainbow...no need to buy anything else.

The thicker the gel (by using less alchol) the more vibrant the color will be and the fewer layers you will need to achieve the look you are going for.

I've attached the last cake I painted. The red stripes were done with red powder petal dust. The blue stripes were done with americolor gel and a little bit of alchol. And the white had luster dust and alchol....(I actually use lemon extract). The easiest to work with was the blue....

Good luck and happy painting.

Iv'e found you get smoother painting strokes if you use color paste thinned with vodka or water. The thing you want to remember is if you use water it will take longer to dry where as voda will dry much much faster. As for the paste, you can buy that just about anywhere. You know, its the little canister with the screw on cap with the foil seal. And if you want that soft diffused coloring, you can also use non toxic artists chalk. The chalk you use dry with a brush. Both give you beautiful results.

Just wondering does it have to be any certain kind of lemon extract or just the regular kind that you get at the grocery?

This is great information- just what I was looking for! Thanks for the tips everyone!

Amber

Hey, I started hand painting petit fours a couple of weeks ago and I have had great results with oil based candy colors. I learned the trick from The Whimsical Bakehouse. They claim you can get more vibrant colors with the oil based colors. I used vegetable oil to thin out the color. It went on beautifully and did not seperate or show brush marks as bad. They can be purchased in the candy making aisle of your local hobby store. Just another option.

Wonderful info!!! I am sooo glad I started this thread.

Thank you so much!

I have PLENTY of gel paste colors in my house. I don't have vodka, but I have Brandy and lemon extract.

I have used paste, gel (wilton) and americolors and they all work great for painting. But, since I don't usually have vodka in the house I used "clear vanilla extract" (I always have plenty of that on hand) to thin it enough to paint with. It also dries very quickly. I save my containers from "luster dust" and I can keep my "cake paints" in them.

I painted on this cake with americolor gels straight up...the grass on the sides and there are leaves on top;

http://www.cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=coppermine&file=displayimage&meta=allby&uname=KHalstead&cat=0&pos=14

I also painted flowers on these cookies in the front;

http://www.cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=coppermine&file=displayimage&meta=allby&uname=KHalstead&cat=0&pos=13

and most recently I painted on this guitar cake using luster dust and clear vanilla mixed;

http://www.cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=coppermine&file=displayimage&meta=allby&uname=KHalstead&cat=0&pos=6

Here is a link to some of the best painted fondant cakes ever. My favorite is the geisha with the cat, called Matthews cake. But they are all fabulous.
http://www.jollybebakery.com/painted.html

I have a question....
How well do the edible markers do on fondant (as far as coloring and drawing). I'm going to be working with fondant on a cake (first time) and want to color some spots on a cow.....
Do you think that would work alright?

Ishie - Yes, the edible markers will work fine to color in cow spots. I've used markers for some things before - but I've found that it works better if your fondant is dried out a bit (not fresh) each time I've tried to use the markers on fresh fondant - it's indented the fondant and made it crack a little...if that makes any sence...

good luck.

I have two birthday cakes to make this weekend and I am going to try my hand at some sugarpaste sculpting and needed to know exactly what this thread is helping with, so thank you. I will be trying a few of the methods to see what works best and will be certain to post my results.

I had great success using edible markers on fondant. Here's one of my cakes as an example: