Ok, I used black icing for my over the hill cake. I got it black and looking great. I decided to used some piping gel in my black icing to do my lettering. BIG MISTAKE!!! Apparently, by adding piping gel, the black will bleed. So upon delivery, my message was a little purple around the black lettering. Anyone else make this mistake? The border was fine, but it had no piping gel in it. So I'm assuming that's the culprit!! Now I know. It actually worked out fine, it almost looked as if I were going for some special affect in the lettering...lol

I don't use piping gel, so I've never had this happen to me....sorry to hear it bled. But, I'm glad to hear it worked out fine!! Is the cake in your pics?

mmdd,

Yep, the cake is in my pics and on my website. It doesn't really show in the pics, which is good. It wasn't horrible, but it was enough for me to notice and not do it again!!

Oh that's so cute...relax, im just here for the cake....I wish I'd thought of that last year for my moms 50th, LOL!

You can't tell from the pic at all, and I have to say you did a GREAT JOB!

Thanks mmdd. I had an order (from the same person) for 3 different cakes. The basket cake, the over the hill cake and the princess cake. The order came in late Tuesday night and had to be ready by Friday for delivery. What a deadline. Atleast now I know I can work under pressure.

Would it have been OK if you had colored the gel black first?

You can work WELL under pressure!! They're all great looking cakes!!

I've read here that if you add meringue powder to your BC (1 T per pound of powdered sugar) it will prevent bleeding.

Black bleeds whether you add piping gel to it or not.

But -- I have read on other forums in the past that if you put piping gel down as a barrier between the BC and the black icing, it will prevent it from bleeding into the BC.

Theresa

I just learned this from my cake class if you add a tablespoon of cornstarch per cup of bc icing your deep colors should not bleed I did it in my clown cake the red,blue and green didn't bleed!1 i guess it works! May be try that nest time no piping gel i don't know if that did it though