Hello there .... absolutely brand new to this business and I have NO idea how to solve some of the problems that occur. I kind of inherited this business after the main decorator decided to leave the profession. My problem: Wedding cake is ordered, they requested white "house" frosting ... looks like cool whip to me ... there's to be writing and decorating along the sides that should be a dark purple color. Our new decorator says that this will bleed/run horribly and we can't do it. Trouble is that this cake has been ordered for months (before I ended up with the business) and the previous decorator didn't seem to think this would be a problem. Any and every suggestion is much appreciated as I have a LOT to learn! Thanks in advance.

I'm not sure about the bleeding, but purple color gels have a bad habit of fading from purple to blue or gray when in bright lights, florescent lights or sunlight.

I would look into powder colors. I know Crystal Colors' purple does not fade.

Not sure about the bleeding, esepcially since I haven't worked with a whipped icing.

Thank you, I'll pass that on to my decorator! Much appreciated.

I just recently experimented with this exact issue. I need to do a white cake with black scrollwork, and I was very concerned about the black bleeding into the white. I put a big smear of BC on a plate and let it crust overnight.

The next day I piped out some black BC and some black RI onto the crusted BC. The BC piping bled. The RI did not.

I'm not sure how your house frosting is made. Is it a crusting icing? If so, I might recommend piping with RI after it's well crusted. If it's not a crusting frosting, I'm not sure how you'd handle that.

Is there a way you can ask the previous decorator what his/her plans were for this cake, and how he/she was going to avoid the purple bleeding into the frosting?

if you refridgerate your cakes then the risk is high that the colour will bleed, be it RI or BC. especially if the cake get condensation on it when you bring it to room temp. If you can avoid the condensation then it will be fine. Now on the whipped icing, i cant say,if its a crusting BC then you can keep it at room temp to avoid any colours running.