I know in California, (well at least where I had gone) a lot of the orders were not being filled because of a lawsuit in northern Calif. According to the staff at this store it was only the silver dragee's were in question and not the gold. hummmm?? We both were stumpped.

I am 33 and I ate them as a kid and I'm fine, I ate them carefully.

I eat dragees and nothing has happened to me. I'm able to buy them in my local cake decorating shop, and I think it's a bunch of hype that the contents are dangerous for your body, think about it, if you were to ingest something and it were to stay in your stomach for longer than 72 hours, you would find yourself worshipping the porcelan goddess - that's how the body is designed.

I had a conversation about this with ChefRubber, when I was at Cake Camp in Las Vegas. ( I was very specific about the ingredients because I was interested in whether they might be kosher or not) Chefrubber manufactures dragees and he said the silver and gold ones were just silver or gold and sugar. I didn't ask about the other colors he had. As Nati said, in places other than the US, the silver and gold ones, at least, are considered edible. In India desserts often are decorated with silver leaf, I've seen edible gold leaf too. These dragees definitely didn't contain lead. (I can't say for sure about any others, but I'd have to think they wouldn't use lead on things used with food) He also said that they aren't actually illegal in California, just that everyone thinks they are because there was a lawyer who was suing anyone who sold them and it was just easier for people to stop selling them then to have to deal with this lawyer. (Fundamentally this was a kind of blackmail. "If you sell these, I'm going to sue you, so you better stop selling them.")

Dragess are expensive, and yes, you can make similar looking decorations with fondant or gumpaste and metallic dust, but then you've used your time, so they really aren't any less expensive if you put that into the equation. They are, of course, much softer when homemade, but taste yucky, cuz the dust is edible (maybe) but "icky"

Hope this helps.

itsacake, very informative.

It's just crazy that something so small and harmless (from my experience) can cause someone to sue and cause a ruckus.

Today i was being asked about the dragees on my cupcakes, and doing a search online to see where they are sold (apart from Australia) i found this
http://www.slashfood.com/2005/12/19/silver-balls-and-why-i-dislike-mark-pollock/

I thought it was really funny
Cheers
Nati

hi,
this is somewhat off topic but here in toronto we have a candy shop downtown called sugar mountain. i was in there one time and was buying candy . i noticed these little silver balls and i had no idea what they were. they weren't dragees, of course i didn't know what dragees were at this time. but i bought a few and tried them and almost broke my tooth well these little silver balls were hard coke flavoured candy covered in silver. i was just wondering has anyone else come across this candy? and is it similar to dragees? what do dragees taste like anyway?

We use them but definitely mention that they are not legal in some states because of the metal content and are technically just for decoration.

I'm now 35 and always ate dragees as a kid too.

By age 7 I was nursing a 264 dragee a day habit, at 15 I had stolen and sold my mothers car so I could get my "silver fix". By 16, I was selling them to kids at my school for a buck a ball... well until the other kids found out that they were like 200 for $3 at Vons. At age 17, my 8 bottle a day habit had pushed my mother to the edge and she placed me in a rehab facility outside of Palm Springs.

18 years later, I still wear the " foil patch" which has curbed my desire for those magical silver BB's. Although I don't partake of them anymore, I still see them when I close my eyes.

I'm with beasshorty...we grew up in nyc and had them everytime there was cake around..martha stewart said the metal content is so small unless you decided to eat hundreds and hundreds of them it won'tharm you.

you cant buy or sell them in CA but here in ga you can still find them at the cake stores..

I wonder why there isn't something that's similar, but not so HARD. I think they are pretty, but gee whiz, who wants to bite into a soft cake and have bb pellets in their mouth?

Melissa

I know they are illegal in the state of California. I searched and searched for them and finally found them at Sur La Table and a small cake store in Chicago. I loved them as a kid and still do, but now I suck on them for a while before I bite down. There are several places on line where you can order them from.

I just bought two different sizes at a local shop for $1.99 a bottle.

You guys are so funny ! I had no idea there had been so many replies until just now. I wound up polka dotting my cake with the forbidden and seemingly pointless but very pretty dragees. I couldn't stop myself once I got going!!!!

Wish I hadn't spent so much....but I think it'll take me a year to get through a bottle! I still haven't eaten one though --and you dragee addicts can't make me!!

I haven't seen the silver in years, only the small yellow in my city.

this is so funny i'm a newbie and stationed in japan, i just this weekend was looking at a yen store = 1$ and got some, along with other goodies as i try to build up a portfolio and then this thread comes along, thanks for the smiles

I ate dragees all the time as a kid!! (maybe that explains a lot - ) I can buy them in cake decorating stores around here, but not in the craft stores. I, too, remember buying them in the grocery store.

~Chelle

The thing is with those little boogers, long before you EVER died of lead poisoning, you would be gumming your meals. They are monsters on your teeth.

I found some yestereday at Kowalski's in MN.
The bottles in different colors were anywhere from $3 to $7. They had silver, gold and other metalic colors, all the bottles for the metalic colors indicated they were for decorations only. All the plain sugar and what I will call pearlized did not mention it.
Sorry I forget the ingredients other than the sugars.

I vaguely remember eating the little monsters when I was a kid (now 27). They were hard as all get out, and I agree that you'd be gumming your food before you ever died of poisoning!
I don't see what all the fuss is about, they've been around forever. I mean, normally, who the heck would eat enough of them to have any effect on your body. You'd have to eat a ton everyday for awhile to even get poisoning. Of all the stupid things to sue over....I could think of many other things that you could be concerned over.
Apparently gold and silver are used in other countries just fine, so I'm not gonna sweat it. Just leave it at "eater beware".
And I've seen Duff use them on tv.
Now since my MIL is notorious at pack ratting over the years, I'm going on a dragee hunt. And if I find them, I'm going to eat a few just in spite of that stupid lawyer!!!!

Here are some colored ones: http://beryls.safeshopper.com/144/cat144.htm?609

Silver and gold ones:
http://www.kitchenkrafts.com/product.asp?pn=IN0285-GLD&sid=GOOGLE&TID=GL9120041&gclid=CO_it7DMxowCFQYfgQod5DJeJQ&bhcd2=1181110745

We call them cachous in New Zealand. I have also been eating these for years with no ill effects. And I will keep eating them! I like to live dangerously Once I began reading threads about them being banned in America I began stocking up. I now have a shoe box full. A bit extreme perhaps but NZ is a very PC country and we will follow suit and ban them too. Its ridiculous! Why don't they ban artificial sweeteners, or peanuts for that matter - allergies and hidden stones in the bags, now THEY will break your teeth!