ok so I found this cake in the galleries-I had originally wanted to do an edible image, but no bakery will do them for me around here and so I'm thinking of just painting on the details on the front. What substance do you all use when you have to do this? It will be on buttercream, not fondant so I'm hoping to use something that will have clean lines and not bleed at all. Would you use the coloring for frosting or is there something else I'm not aware of thats better? Thanks all!

Painting on BC is hard to do as it wants to move on you. Thin your gel color withlemon or vanila extract or vodka to a painting consistency and apply it with a light touch. It you aren't using a crusting BC it will never work.

i believe some walmarts/ big stores will do edible images in their bakery for you.

if you are painting, use the gel colours, slightly thinned down with alcohol (like vodka, lots of people like everclear i think it is called? or lemon extract).

im not sure how neat it stays on bc though. it might be worth making a gumpaste/ fondant plaque to paint the lable on?
xx

I agree with brincess_b.....the color will bleed into the butter cream, I would make a plaque out of fondant/gumpaste and paint your design on that. Then just attach it to the cake.

Roll it out real thin so that it will appear to be a "label"


If you don't want to use gel colors/alcohol, you could use edible markers instead

http://cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopict-666922.html

thanks for the responses! I was planning on Indydebi's crusting buttercream-do you think that would work? I may just roll out some MMF-I just haven't worked with that much so I'm always hesitant-I always get my buttercream to look like fondant with the viva method (love it!)

^^ I guess if the edible marker, gel colors didn't look great I could cover it with a plaque of mmf

i like your polan with the back up plan in place! sure it will work out fine anyway. show us a pic afterwards!
xx

I would hand-pipe it using tip 00.