Sorry if this question has already been covered ... I looked but didn't find an answer.

I need to mix in something with my royal icing to turn it metcallic silver. How do I do this? I do have some "Nusilver" luster dust, as well as "Dove Grey" petal dust. Do I use both?

This is my first time using Royal Icing .... am going to use it for beading around my diamond shaped fondant cutouts ... and for flower accents. Thank you!

You paint it on by hand after the icing has dried...then it is really shiny. Use alcohol (vodka is good because it is clear, or clear vanilla or lemon extract) and a paintbrush. Don't add a lot of liquid, just a few drops to make it thinner than a paste. The more you thin it out, the less concentrated it is, the less "shiny" it is.

I don't know if it looks silver if you just add it to the icing itself...never tried that!

Read both labels first! I think most lusters are edible, but sometimes the petal dusts are just for decorating gumpaste flowers and stuff...not to eat.

Thank you for your response I am not sure that brushing on after applying to the cake is the kind of application I am looking for. Maybe I need to consider piping gel? Have never used either piping gel *or* royal icing, just looking for a silver frosting type of thing that I can use to pipe silver dots and swirly silver lines ..... does anyone have any ideas? Thanks again!

I just did a motorcycle cake that I delivered this afternoon. I wanted the "parts" (engine, exhaust pipes, etc.) to have that metallic, chrome look....I tried mixing in a little bit of NuSilver with the bc, but realized it would've taken me a TON in order to get the shiny silver result. So I just tinted the bc grey and piped it out where I needed it, then added a little bit of vodka to the NuSilver and painted it on....worked great. I was able to cover the grey and it all looked like silver icing! One thing I found, though, was that once the icing had dried or crusted, the NuSilver was harder to apply consistently...it kept looking thin and had air bubbles in it....so I tried it on some icing that I only let set up for just a few minutes....I had to use a VERY light hand, otherwise I'd move the icing around, but once I got the hang of it, it was easy and turned out wonderfully - at least for a first in using luster dust!

HTH -

I just did a "screw plate" bone fracture cake for a surgeon and I wanted it to be shiny silver. I mixed together nu-silver and thinned buttercream and piped it on. I had to use quite a bit to get the luster but the area I needed to work with was small.

I think for the type of decorations you're describing that gray icing painted with silver luster dust (not dry--wet) would work quite well. I just used luster dust on a royal icing pattern on a wedding cake and it worked beautifully. I mixed the dust with lemon extract to make a paint.
I don't know of any way to make the icing itself silver.

Colette Peters uses lots of metallic decorations in her books and she uses the painting method.

thank god for this site- I am an idiot-I painted, or tried to paint, NUSilver on my fondant pieces on a truck cake & wondered why it seemed to keep 'dusting off'. My god I was supposed to MIX it w/something! My children have robbed me of my brain.

LOL You're not the only one!! I know the feeling of brainlessness well!!

Jennycakes--I have a friend who swears a baby's placenta is made of the mother's brain cells. lol. I believe it!

OH, thank god for you guys!- I'm glad we're all in the same brainless boat LOL