I have a cake coming up and the bride wants black piping detail on white buttercream cake. I have piped on fondant before, but not with dark colors onto white buttercream. It is a white chocolate ganache buttercream that has a slight crusting.

Is it best to use royal icing? Will it bleed onto buttercream? Will it stay in place if I use a softer, yet slightly crusting buttercream? Help!!

Thank you for any advice!

I piped black on white frequently. The key is to make sure your icing is pretty crusted. Bleeding is caused when moisture mixes with moisture. When I pipe a black crusting BC onto the top of an already-crusted white BC, there isn't any moisture on the surface of the white BC to pull the moisture from the black BC.

http://cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=gallery&file=displayimage&pid=1408039

(The writing on the side is black BC on this one ----> ) http://cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=gallery&file=displayimage&pid=1371608

http://cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=gallery&file=displayimage&pid=1300981

There is a post on here that talks about using chefmaster coloring instead of instead of americolor. The person that posted it said they had talked to chefmaster and they said their colors do not bleed. I do not know for a fact have not tried it but I did use chefmaster last week on a cake for the first time and was impressed how vibrant the color was.

I did a cake recently that was really dark purple piping on white buttercream - it worked fine doing what indydebi posted above. I let the icing crust really well before doing the piping, there were even a couple of spots where I messed up, and carefully lifted off the piping without leaving a trace. The dark purple was buttercream too, just thinned out some.

Here is a link to the cake:

http://cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=gallery&file=displayimage&pid=1759545

Can you then put it back in the fridge with no problems ?

I don't ever refrigerate cakes, so that is not a problem for me. I am thinking condensation would be a problem with the black piping.

Thanks a bunch to all of you!

My other question was about the refridgeration after ice it. If I iced it with the white buttercream and then pipe it later, do you put the iced cake in the refridgerator to set up before you pipe it?

where do you find chefmaster ?

Loucinda, what a beautiful cake!