I am making my final cake for the Wilton Course III and I have decided to do a stacked present cake. I will be making a bow and ribbon down the cake and wanted to put some silver luster dust on it to make it look Christmassy. I know that you mix can mix it with vodka and then you paint it on, but will the vodka have any effect (taste or otherwise) on the cake? I am serving it to my students at their Christmas party and I don't want any problems. Thanks.

instead of vodka use the clear vanilla or lemon extract.

I used it with clear vanilla and it stayed wet! Even one week later the "painted" fondant was wet. I've read to use clear spirits so I'm trying that on a cake I'm making next week.

I used clear vanilla on my snowman and it worked just fine.

Catgirl...
Using alcohol (like vodka) has no noticeable effect since the alcohol all evaporates away. Even if it din't... you might use 1/8 of an ounce total... not enough to affect even a child. (Note ... extracts are made with an alcohol base, so switching to them will not eliminate the use of alcohol - but like I said, the alcohol evaporates) Many people recommend a good (not artificial) lemon extract, as th lemon oil helps prevent streaking and helps your colour go on smoothly, and the alcohol component evaporates and dries it out.

ChrisJ ... perhaps the clear vanilla you used contains too much water to dry properly?

I used Wilton's Clear Vanilla...use my first time painting on fondant so maybe I added too much? I'll try spirits next time and see what happens

Now should I construct my fondant bow and then paint it with the luster dust, or paint the fondant first and then construct the bow?

1) bow
2) dust

otherwise risk fingerprints being left behind in the dust

Thank you. I should have thought of that; silly me!!

I'm not positive but Wilton's vanilla I think is artificial.

Pure vanilla extract has high alcohol content, lemon extract is somewhere around 80% alcohol that is why you can paint and it evaporates quickly.

I tried vodka but it didn't evaporate as quickly as the lemon extract did, which had the best results.