I recently did a purse cake with lavender squares, matching the favors for the party. By the time she got it home it had already started to fade to light blue.

All was OK with her, thank goodness. the cake was a hit. It wasn't under bright lights or nothing. Can someone tell me how to avoid this from happening again.


Thanks for your reply.

It's VERY frustrating, but almost all red, pink, purple food colors fade fast. It's the exposure to natural and artificial light that does it.

I bought Spectrum food colors from Ateco, which do help with the fading -- I use it for my cake models in my shop. The reds still fade and become a bit lighter but the other colors stay true

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00004S1C6/?tag=cakecentral-20

I've heard that direct sunlight can fade colored fondant. I've never had it happen, maybe someone else will know better.

I think it helps if you make your icing/fondant/etc. at least a day in advance and let it sit before using it. Seems to set the color if you can wait.

No experience with fading, but have done lavender mints perfectly matched to the wedding color only to see pictures later where every different lavender item (mints, cake, napkins, flowers) showed as a different shade of purple.

I made a compact for some eye shadow to go with a purse and the lavender on the compact was fine to start with then by afternoon of the next day had faded to a light blue.

This happened to me , a customer got a cake off me for her daughters christening , when it left my shop it was lilac and it was icing made up the day before so that did not help, anyways she was using it the next day , took it home , put it on a table in the sun and left it there , called me the next day ( I was on holidays at the time) to tell me I had given her a blue cake , I promise you , she said , it is blue (I had luckily taken pictures of it and it was lilac when it left me) she was very rude about it , said its sitting in the sun right now and its blue as , and I learnt a lesson about colour fade , she rang me a few days later to tell me she wsa sorry at how rude she had been and I showed her the lilac photos next time she came in , but it was a lesson learnt
which is what its all about

Suzy

I noticed that pink fades super fast on a couple of my cakes. fortunatly no one was the wiser. but I made a cake recently that had a pink tiara that I need to have harden, then I wanted to have a matching "fresh" fondant bow placed when the cake was completed. I kept the tiara and bow pieces under foil, and the mixed fondant in an opaque container (I noticed that one side of the fondant blob changed too). it all worked great for me, but I know you need to be careful with pink/purple colors.

(also, my Wilton instructor told me that she made a cake with purple BC roses and placed it in the back of her car. when she got to the wedding it was blue. the bride had a fit, but what are you gonna do?)

Just wondering if airbrushing in these colors still fades? I didn't know if anyone had any experience with this and if this could be an alternative for some pieces that need to be lavender/pink.

Over 20 years ago, the #2 Red Dye was removed from the market. That when this started. Purple is made from red and blue.... when the (now unstable) red fades out, all that is left is the blue.

Thanks for all the comments.....I am going to try the Spectrum colors and see if there is any difference. I was also wondering if painted colors fade as quick. I am going to try that and we will see what happens.

Thanks again.......