Making gold and silver icing is tricky, because if you mix edible luster dust into buttercream the shiny particles can’t reflect light back, and that’s what makes it shine. You have to use something clear to suspend the particles, so I decided to try piping gel (corn syrup would also work.) You also have to use 100% edible luster dust (not just non-toxic) if it’s going to be eaten, so I’m using Monegasque luster dust and edible glitter for this demo.
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What luster dust to use?
For this demo I used the Monegasque line of luster dusts and edible glitters. They’re FDA approved and come in a lot of colors, so you’ll be able to find a color that will work to give you a shine on your cakes or cookies.
You can make edible paint mixing this in with vodka, because vodka has no taste and evaporates quickly, so it won’t soften the sugar that it’s painted on. I show that technique in this article about making gold cakes, but it works best on fondant. You can paint on buttercream but it’s a lot harder to do because the icing softens up.
What icing to use.
If you mix luster dust into buttercream it won’t be reflective and it will color the icing but not be shiny. You have to stick with putting the luster dust in something clear so that light can go through the icing and reflect off of the shiny particles in the luster dust. Using piping gel, which is basically corn syrup and corn starch, will give you a clear icing that you can pipe or brush onto the sides of a piping bag, then fill that with buttercream.
Piping gel isn’t technically an icing, but it’s pipe-able and you can brush it onto things like paint, and it’s sweet to eat. I’ve seen people make gold by mixing vegetable oil with luster dust, but that would be nasty to eat. Piping gel can be piped onto the top of cakes, cupcakes, and cookies, and it will firm up as it sits. It might not work on the sides of cakes, but you could try the piping bag method if you want to do that.
To do gold buttercream in a piping bag, you’d basically make the gold piping gel, then brush it onto the inside of a piping bag to cover the sides of the bag. When that’s done, fill the bag with buttercream, and when you pipe it out the gold on the sides of the bag will cover the piped lines. This will work for small amounts of piping, but the gold will run out eventually and get lighter or disappear completely. So just use that method if you have small amounts of piping, and start with a small piping bag so that you’re not stuck with a ton of icing in it when the gold runs out.
You can make your own piping gel (here’s the recipe) or get it on Amazon or in craft stores:
Gold piping gel.
For the gold, I started with piping gel and then added some Monegasque gold luster dust.
I added about half a teaspoon of the dust, but you can add more if you have a larger amount of gel.
Mixing it in was easy, and it made a really good gold color right away. This was a really easy way to get a good gold color that could be piped onto cookies or cakes, or to brush onto buttercream that’s been in the fridge and is hard enough to work on.
I’m really impressed with this gold color, I think that it’s better then the vodka paint because it holds more color.
Click here to see the Monegasque luster dusts on Amazon (affiliate link)
Silver piping gel.
For the silver, I was a little skeptical because silver is hard to get really shiny if you have an edible silver. I mixed it into the piping gel with about the same amount that I used for the gold.
This made a really good silver color, and I’m also impressed by this. A lot of the silver colors that I’ve used in the past weren’t silver, they looked more grey and less shiny, but this was really shiny.
The Monegasque luster dust is FDA approved for food use, so this silver is better than a lot of other brands that aren’t approved for use on things that are edible. I’m really happy with this silver and would definitely use it on Christmas cookies and other designs that need to have a good metallic shine.
Click here to see the Monegasque luster dusts on Amazon (affiliate link)
Rose Gold glitter piping gel.
The rose gold edible glitter has particles that are larger than the luster dust, so it ended up being visible in the piping gel when I mixed it in. It was shiny but not as shiny as the luster dust mix, but since you could still see the tiny particles it actually looked pretty interesting.
The shine for this color wasn’t as bright as the luster dust one, but the color was still shiny. I did like the way that this looked, but I would go with the luster dust if you’re choosing between the dust and the glitter for this kind of thing. For putting it onto cupcakes or drinks, it would work better because the larger particles will be more reflective.
Click here to see the Monegasque luster dusts on Amazon (affiliate link)
The final colors.
These are the final colors…You can see that they’re all shiny, and you actually can see the glitter particles on the bottom one, so that shows what I’m talking about there. The gold and silver didn’t have the visible flecks of glitter because the luster dust is finer, and the glitter gives you an actual glittery look in the piping gel.
I painted some of the piping gel onto a fake cake pop that I had to see what it looked like on white chocolate. (Click here to see how to make the cake pops.) This is the gold, and you can see that it’s definitely shiny after being painted onto an opaque surface.
This is the silver, so you can see that it’s lighter on the cake pop than it was on the paper behind it. If you wanted a brighter color you could mix more of the luster dust into the gel to make it darker.
I love this luster dust, and the fact that it’s FDA approved is the icing on the cake, pun intended. A lot of luster dusts are labelled non-toxic, but they haven’t gone through the FDA approval process. I like the fact that these have, and I would definitely choose them for adding metallic details to cakes and cookies.
You can watch the entire mixing process here:
