Gold cake

[bripastryguy]

I had a client approach me with a request for a completely edible gold american express card decorated cake. What is the best way to tackle this???

[Tepee]

Hmmm...I always thought that gold/silver dusts, although labelled "non-toxic", is better not consumed. The labels on the jars I buy say they are for "decorative purposes only". However, if the gold is painted on fondant, you could ask your customer to peel it off before eating the cake. It'll be a tad more tricky if it's sprayed on buttercream.

[Wendy DeBord]

I would approach this as a card on the cake instead of making the whole cake a card. The thickness of a sheet cake underneath yet as part of the card makes it a thick gold card, ruining the realism. Instead I'd do a thin gold card out of gum paste and lay or support it on my cake. That eliminates any non-edible issues...........plus you can sell it to them as a souvenir they can keep.

I'd like to see the card standing or leaning. I'm just not crazy about flat sheet cakes regardless of decoration.

[JeanneCake]

There's two types of gold "dust" - one is called "gold ultra" which has "for decorative purposes only - not to be consumed" written all over it; and then there's a few different types of gold luster dust which is non-toxic - bright, super, old, antique, which can be mixed with lemon extract (paints and dries better than with a clear alcohol) and painted on fondant or gum paste. I've found the best price for luster dust at Pfeil and Holing (www.cakedeco.com)

I agree with making the card from gum paste, and "painting" it. You could also (depending on budget!) use edible gold leaf sheets, which are a huge hassle to apply cleanly and may not give you the look you want after all that aggravation... On gum paste, you may find that the edible food pen ink would bleed so test it before you start writing on the actual piece (you might want to make several...!)

Another option is to scan in an actual Gold card, enlarge it and change the name and numbers appropriately, bring it somewhere where they do edible images and have it printed. Then apply to fondant, and place on the cake....

[Steve Klc]

Well, unless you have very good insurance I wouldn't use an excess of that "non-toxic" stuff and certainly not all over the cake or on any potentially edible surface. I'd like someone to show me the FDA language that equates "non-toxic" with "edible" or "food-safe." Wendy, I like your removeable card idea--I'd do it out of pastillage if you want something larger or stronger--even thick gum paste is fragile in larger sheets. The only edible gold is real gold--and I think depending on your budget Bri edible gold leaf gilded/draped on a fondant-covered rectangular Amex card-shaped cake on a black base could be kind of cool--there's a trick to applying it, you have to peel it off and use the static electricty to your advantage, and at least it would be eminently edible according to the FDA. I think ultimately how you approach this depends on your budget and the number of servings. Maybe you do a whole series of gold cards flying across the cake or each attached to a swirl of pastillage ribbon draped over and around a cake--and in those cases you could use the non-toxic stuff as paint. Amex has a kind of antique gold color to it anyway.

[JeanneCake]

Steve, I've always been curious about exactly what that luster dust stuff is!

I took classes with Colette Peters a few years back and she liberally paints her cakes with various colors of luster dust (as opposed to "petal dust"), as do several other cake stylists/designers (Jan Kish, Margaret Braun, Gail Watson). Does anyone know what this stuff is? or what it's made from? It's definitely used all over her cakes in her latest book...

I know in the UK, similar dusts are manufactured by Squires Kitchen and Sugarflair; and their equivalent of our FDA doesn't have the same level of stringency so they are accepted as food safe in the UK. I've been curious about Ann Baber's Folk Art Paint (it looks from the photos like the fingerpaint stuff we used as kids!) but I've always thought if you tried to order it, customs would stop it anyway.

And, on a sort of related topic, remember those silver and gold dragees? What's in those that got them outlawed? I know in California, they can't be sold anymore; I'm just wondering why. I use the edible fondant pearls from Pfeil and Holing and now that I think of it, they're probably rolled in luster dust!....

[andiesenji]

Gold and Silver dragees are back on the market in California. I have been buying them for the past two years with no problems.

Pure(near) 23 K gold leaf is edible. It has been used for hundreds of years on certain pastries, on candies and candied fruits. You can even find it in a liquor (Goldwasser) an extremely sweet liqueur.

It isn't cheap and is tricky to work with but the results can be spectacular.

I have used it many times to cover half of a glacé fruit or place onto a cake coated with a poured chocolate that has set smooth and firmly.

It has been especially propular with my Asian clients.

It is also used in some medical treatments for severe rheumatoid arthritis.

There is also an edible silver foil that is used on some Asian candies.

I have also used it in some of my paintings, in particular, a series of paintings with an Egyptian theme I did in the late 70s and early 80s.

I took a course in gold leaf application before doing the artwork, mainly because the course used artificial gold leaf and I could practice with the inexpensive substitute before springing for the real stuff.

That being said, I think the advice about having a printed top made up by people who know how to do this is the way to go.

I saw one of the "Great Chefs" shows a few weeks back where the pastry chef had a couple of sheets of printed edible images and he assembled all the little stamp-sized bits to make what was essentially a mosaic picture on top of the cake. It was spectacular.

Edited December 4, 2004 by andiesenji (log)

[andiesenji]

Sources for edible gold:

Gold

more gold

here is a product

gilded almonds

and another source

for edible gold leaf.

and my favorite: The one I buy from.

Gilded Planet.

[duckduck]

Those are some decent prices! Thanks for the links.

[chefpeon]

I wanted to post this as sort of an example of how you could do your cake.

These double nickels were two chocolate panels on top of two round cakes. All the client had to

do was lift the panels off and cut the cake. Since I was so liberal with the silver luster dust, I wanted to keep it off the cake as much as possible. I'm pretty leery of the "non toxic but not suitable for consumption" thing. How vague is that? Well, it won't hurt you if you eat it, but you

shouldn't eat it......talk about confusing! So I just err on the side of caution.

With the help of my trusty Macintosh, I scanned the front and back of a nickel. Then I imported the image into Photoshop and ran it through a filter that made the picture look more like a "Paint-by-number" image. I then enlarged the images to the size I wanted, and printed them out in reverse. I used many shades of gray, black and white to painstakingly create the images in white chocolate on top of the printouts. I just piped all the colors of white chocolate directly on the paper on the images. Sort of like tracing. After the chocolate sets, the paper peels off, and voila!

I had my nickels. But I wasn't done yet. I wanted to recreate the raised effect of the letters, and

Jefferson, etc, so I re-piped all my shades of chocolate on top of the chocolate disk I had previously made to give it dimension. Then I scraped it smooth with the edge of a knife, and went crazy with the luster dust. And there you have it. Took me 6 hours. I was a bit cranky by the end of it all.

Anyway, I guess my suggestion is that you can do your Amex card in chocolate, like I did, and go nuts with the luster dust, or gold leaf or what have you, and not worry too much about your clients eating it and dropping dead or getting sick, if it's on a removable chocolate panel. Another bonus is that clients love decorations they can keep......they don't feel so bad about dropping a wad of money on a cake. Sort of like taking a doggie bag home from a restaurant. If there's stuff left over, they feel like they've gotten their money's worth.

Edited to add: Why double nickels? The Birthday Girl was 55 of course!

Edited December 4, 2004 by chefpeon (log)

[kthull]

Anne, there truly is no end to your genius.

I'm awestruck.

[Abra]

Annie, you are one of a kind. My favorite kind.

[Wendy DeBord]

Nice work Annie!

................I have to admit I didn't understand how your reversed image helped when it came to the raised dimensions for the face and house. Doesn't you base cover over that? Can you explain more, please? Aren't you free handing at that step?

[chefpeon]

Nice work Annie!

................I have to admit I didn't understand how your reversed image helped when it came to the raised dimensions for the face and house. Doesn't you base cover over that? Can you explain more, please? Aren't you free handing at that step?

←

Ok, I reverse the image in Photoshop so that the whole nickel looks backwards. When I pipe all the chocolate on, and then flip it over to peel the paper off once it's set, it's all frontways again.

To achieve the raised images of the face and building, I just piped more white chocolate on top of what I already had, so in essence I piped the face and building twice: once to achieve the picture within the disk and twice to raise the image up. Hope that's clear enough.....easy to do but harder to explain!