The gold tier is covered in confetti sprinkles and then painted or airbrushed in gold. Here's a video:
You could use a grass tip and cover the cake with buttercream and then airbrush it gold ;) Or... you could have a fake layer (dummy cake) covered with real glitter, as long as it is well stuck and shaken so it won't release and it does not touch the other layers directly, it should be fine. For better safety, you could dress the dummy layer with gold cloth with sequins. Hope one of these ideas helps start up the creative process. :)
I'd suggest that if you use gold Disco Dust that you make that layer a "dummy" cake layer that is not edible. I 'd also suggest you spray the dummy layer with something to keep the disco dust from migrating to the actual parts of the cake that will be eaten.
NEVER put disco dust on anything that's going to be eaten! @Apti is right, if you're going to use plastic on a cake use a dummy tier and seal it. Most people will be able to eat ground-up plastic and nothing will happen, but if someone has a medical issue that's irritated by particles it can really hurt them. I have a friend who can't eat nuts or anything like that and if he ate disco dust it would mess him up. It's not a food product and it says that it isn't meant to be consumed on the label.
It does look as though it is piped with a grass nozzle, though... which would make it edible if sprayed with edible gold paint.
I tried to reply to this thread last night and kept getting an Error 500 message, so I'm going to be redundant, but here it is:
NO, NO DISCO DUST ON FOOD!!! DISCO DUST IS NOTHING BUT FINE GRAIN PLASTIC CRAFT GLITTER, FOR USE ONLY ON DECORATIONS THAT WILL BE REMOVED AND NOT EATEN.
Non-toxic is not a description for food. It’s a description for craft supplies and cleaning products.
Disco dust is not an FDA approved food additive. My contact at the FDA, Ellen Anderson [you can google her] assures me that putting disco dust on food is adulteration and subject to an enforcement action by the FDA.
As Shocolata [Apti, & costumeczar] said, on a dummy layer with the disco dust strongly adhered, then disco dust is fine, but if the layer is to be eaten, then the decorations need to be EDIBLE.
Edible glitters are made from sanding/sparkling sugar, gum Arabic, or gelatin.
Links to tutorials for edible glitters:
http://americancakedecorating.com/?p=1921
Links to edible metallic dusts:
http://artisancakecompany.com/2014/11/the-best-edible-metallic-food-colors/
If you’re going to make food for people to eat, then “non-toxic” isn’t good enough. It HAS to be completely EDIBLE.
I was getting the same 500 error @maybenot and I was going crazy trying to respond to this thread! NO PLASTIC!
I would hate to find glitter in my cake. But @jjmoore came and asked a question and then disappeared. It would be nice to get some feedback on what method she's (or he's) decided to use. I sometimes feel like an idiot hurrying to respond to queries from people who never come back to tell us how they have solved a problem.
I'm sorry, i didn't mean to disappear. I watched the video from the first reply and it gave me some good ideas and I'm completely on board with the no disco dust! I was trying to decide if the gold cake in the picture was a dummy cake or a real cake but i'm really not sure? I have some time before I have to make this cake and it's for my daughters first birthday so I'm just trying to learn some different methods to get the look I want.
Making my own edible glitter out of gelatin seems like a lot of work and I think I would have to make several batches so I'm not sure if I'm going to attempt that.
I think I will attempt the video suggestion which is covering the cake in confetti sprinkles and painting them with luster dust and lemon extract, and maybe some aerosol spray gold over the top? I don't have an airbrush machine :(
If that doesn't work then I guess I will just make a dummy layer for "looks"
Thank you for all of your replies. I'll let you know how it turns out and which method works best. But if anyone has any other ideas or experiences I'd love to hear them. Thanks
Do you think the cake might be covered in this kind of glitter? It does say its edible and has no taste?
I think that the cake in the photo is probably covered in disco dust, since there are plenty of decorators who don't care that they're serving their customers plastic.
It's also 100% possible that the cake in the photo is a fake one from a photo shoot. It's hard to tell, but the number of photo shoots that are floating around online with cakes that are totally impractical and inedible in real life is disturbing. Pinterest is to blame! Not that I'm not all over Pinterest, but it's to blame! ;)
Those edible glitter squares are fairly large, compared to craft glitter--and they're pricey [I've seen them in larger quantities--much cheaper that way--at nycake.com, although not in stock at the moment], but they're pretty.
If I were making it to be edible, I'd buy sparkling sugar [bit larger and shinier than sanding sugar, in my opinion], rub some metallic gold airbrush color into it, spread it out on parchment to dry, and then add a bit of dry edible metallic luster dust [from sugarpaste.com, thesugarart.com, or pristinepowders.com] or hybrid edible luster dust [globalsugarart.com]. It will be a beautiful effect and completely edible. Only you will know that it doesn't look exactly like a plastic glitter covered dummy.
You don't need to buy an airbrush @jjmoore Just use a clean spray bottle, the kind you would use to save some cologne in to take with you in your handbag, and mix in it some airbrush colour if you have it OR use a little bit of water and your favourite gel paste colour. A little goes a long way when sprayed from a distance. Do protect the table and surrounding surfaces because spray loves to travel in the air! From time to time you might get a drop on the cake surface, don't worry about it, do not touch it just spray elsewhere and return when it is dry. Ideally you need to spray from a steady distance with steady squirts. A practice run will train your trigger finger :)
I always thought non-toxic meant it wasn't going to be a big issue for the environment. Not that is was safe to eat. I would never assume that.
As for what to use I don't know. It looks almost to goldish to be an edible layer.
Robert
I just ordered some of the edible glitters from Rainbow Dusts. They get some mixed feedback online but I want to see for myself. They do look sparkly in the photos but a lot of that is lighting...It's gum arabic and labelled edible, not non-toxic so we'll see.
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