I’ve done a few cakes that had an iridescent effect on the fondant. It’s a pretty look, and it makes the cake seem to be different colors when you look at it from different angles. It’s an easy cake decorating technique to use and it makes a cake look shiny and multicolored at the same time.
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This feather cake was one of my all-time favorites. (Click here to see some of the other ones.)
Make the iridescent feathers.
To get the iridescent look, start with black or dark fondant feathers, and brush them with shiny multicolor luster dust. I used a large, fluffy brush so that the dust got spread around kind of unevenly to give it a softer, more undefined look. If you put the color on too precisely it can look streaky, but you might want that, so experiment with it.
If you’re putting the fondant directly onto the cake, make sure that you use an edible variety like Crystal Colors.
By brushing with the different colors, you’ll create a layered multicolor look that will seem to change color depending on how the light is hitting it.
What colors to use.
The colors that I found that worked best were a combination of green, peacock blue, and magenta.
Those three colors together create the iridescent sheen that you’ll see in mother-of-pearl and other glazes that create the multicolor look in pottery.
You could also use lighter colors in pale shades of those three colors to recreate an actual mother-of-pearl effect on a lighter color of fondant or gumpaste.
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