Hello all

Can anyone tell me if there is a way of making 'gold' royal icing for piping lettering, other than painting it gold afterwards. All the things I have tried don't end up with the same 'metallic' look that you get when you paint it with lustre dust afterwards. I just wondered if there is a way of dying it proper gold before piping?
Thanks
Alix

Are you just trying to save time, or going for a cleaner look? Sometimes I give my icing a gold "color" with coloring and then brush it metallic and I have to worry a bit less about every tiny space because it shows up less then white. But if someone knows how to pipe metallic please share!

It is not possible to make metallic gold with royal icing. But I have heard that some use piping gel. Never tried it myself though. I just paint the gold on.

What I always do is exactly what you have mentioned. Colour the royal icing with a little bit of Gold gel colour from Americolor. Then do the piping and let it dry. Then mix a bit of Gold lustre dust with clear alcohol, and paint over the piping.

And the other thing that you can do is what Gefion has mentioned. You need to add lot of lustre dust to piping gel and do the piping. But the piping gel won't go hard as the royal icing. So you need to be careful not to touch them once you have done the piping. I learnt this from tonedna. She did a cake with scroll works done in this method.

There are so many varieties of gold lustre dusts. I really like the Radiant Gold.

Thanks folks
I had a feeling it wasn't possible. I hadn't thought of colouring the icing gold first though - that's a really useful tip. I'm not that handy with a paintbrush so that sounds like a good idea for me!

Yeah..Paintong can be a real pain..You can use piping gel with luster dust in it. But it won harden, like bashini mentioned. It just depends on what you are doing!
Edna