If you ice a cake with Pastry Pride or Bettercreme, what do you pipe the flowers, leaves, etc. with? I spoke to a woman whose Dad owned a great Italian bakery in Brooklyn. She said they never used buttercream. They used whipped pastry cream that is non-dairy. They also decorated these cakes....HOW? I have read that colors bleed into the PP as well.... Help?

I use Pastry Pride, I pipe leaves and the color never bleeds thru. I decorate them just as if I were using buttercream. However, when I need to do work such as scroll or draping on the sides, I ice the cake lets say in the morning and in the evening after the cake is set, I then do the decorating.

If it is lite I will use either buttercream or royal icing.

Works like a charm for me.

Where I work we use Bettercreme all the time. I personally do not like it, I feel it has no flavor and it is just fluffy nothing, made from vegetable oil and chemicals....but, we sell lots of it. We usually decorate it with buttercream.

Bettercreme does not hold the colors well, they fade quickly, within a few hours. The customers do not seem to mind the decorations being made with buttercream.

The bettercreme can be used for the decorations if you wish. You can make roses and pipe with it, you just can't get bold colors. I have made roses with it, using no color to make the rose, then with the rose still on the stick, I airbrush the color on. You can get vibrant colors this way and they do not fade out. I still use buttercream for the leaves.

Hello. I was thinking about whether I could ice a pumpkin cake roll in either stabilized whipped cream or Pastry Pride and then airbrush it to have the colors of a tree. shades of tan... ? Is this possible?

You can airbrush any of the whipped toppings. They will hold just fine.

Thanks... Not stabilized cream right? Just the PP or Bettercreme? Do I let it dry a bit first? Use regular air brush colors...? If I wanted to make a knot or two on the roll, would I use rice crispy treats? Thank you!

Airbrush colors are very lightweight, they can be applied to many things. They are waterbased though so what ever you apply it to just be sure it will adhere and not run or ruin your base.

I like your idea for the knot

thank you aunt ginn!