Hi everyone,

I am making a cake that needs to be done tonight for 7pm. I am having a little problem. I need to do some gold accents on it. I was going to use gumpaste and paint it, but when I was making it last night, I really didn't like how it was turning out, and I know I can do a much better job with it piping, however, it NEEDS to be gold. That brings us to today, my cake is assembled, I am just getting ready to start with the decorating and details. I am going to pipe on the gold part, but, these are my 2 options, what should I do.

Option 1 ~ Attempt to add gold luster dust to my buttercream to make it gold? Would this work? I made the buttercream dream, it doesn't crust the greatest, but think if I use it to pipe I will just add a little merange powder and a little more icing sugar to stiffen it up some. Thoughts on if this would work??

Option 2 ~ Make some piping gel and add the gold luster dust to it to make the gold and pipe with it. There is a fair amount of piping with it, I am afraid about taste a little, I don't think it will be too much that you will notice it taste wise a lot, unless the person gets a piece with quite a bit on.

Thanks in advance. I am just getting ready to roll and cut my fondant to add, and then it will be time to prepare for piping.

You will have to add far too much gold dust to your BC to make it a nice colour. I would pipe with your BC (you can colour it a golden yellow colour with colouring), then paint over it with a fairly thick mixture of your gold lustre dust and alcohol. I wouldn't use piping gel mixed with the dust.

I am not sure about adding the dust to your buttercream. Seams to me that the sugar would coat it and keep the dust from having any shine. I've never added it to piping gel, either, but that seems like a better bet. Is there not a way it could be brushed onto the icing either dry or with some vodka?

I hope it all works out for you!

Re option 1: nope.

Re option 2: yes it will work but it will only have a medium about of shimmer, because, as with the buttercream, the granules will get coated.

OPTION 3: Pipe it with buttercream or royal icing, let it dry a bit, then paint over it with gold luster dust mixed with vodka. This is your best bet by far

Is it a fondant cake? If so, I would use Royal Icing then paint that with gold dust mixed with ever clear or vodka.

Use royal icing. It hardens pretty fast and will take the gold luster dust.

Ok, thanks everyone. Can someone give me a great royal icing recipe to use? Also, I don't have any vodka around, could I use a almond or clear vanilla extract for painting. Thanks so much, I never even thought about the royal icing!! I am a newb!! HA!

Ok, and it is a buttercream with fondant

I've never used lemon juice...just lemon extract. Isn't it the alcohol that evaporates quickly to make it usable for painting on sugar? I would think that lemon juice would be like any other liquid. Any clear extract with a high alcohol content will also work.

you can paint the gold on crusted buttercream should you not want to go the royal icing route--but ONLY if it's mixed with an extract or alcohol to dry quickly.

Definitely don't use lemon *juice* - it will never dry.
as was mentioned above, any clear non-colored extract should work.

Lemon juice does dry. Used on fondant... never tried it on BC or RI.

Royal icing: egg whites and powdered sugar mixed with paddle to desired consistency. I never use a recipe

Thanks everyone, the royal icing worked great. Thanks so much!!