Hi there! 

My sister has requested a cake fitting with her 'Glow in the dark' theme. 

I have two questions to put up here. 

1. What brand do you use to get very bright fluorescent colours, and how much/what method do you use to get them so bright. 

2. Has anyone used tonic water to make things glow under a black light? 

Thanks in advance! 

Stephanie xo

Never tried it but i saw they used glow in the dark body paint on a cake in Cake Boss once?

Hello! 

From personal experience I can say that the tonic water method does not work, from the methods that my manager and I have used on  neon cakes we've made it just gives the illusion that a cake is glowing.

My manager, Elizabeth, took a black, fondant covered cake and decorated it with splatter "neon" colors. She made a thin royal icing and colored the icing with Wilton gel colors(the best way to describe the colors was a little beyond a pastel color) and "flicked" the icing onto the cake with a skewer.

(Cake shown below was made by my manager)

When I made a neon cake with fondant I dyed the fondant with Wilton gel colors and gave it more of a pastel look, also giving it the illusion that it would be glowing in the dark.

We made sure that we tell any customer who orders a "neon" or "glow" cake that it's actually not going to glow under a UV light, but it's going to give the illusion that it is glowing.

(Cake shown below was made by me)

Even though our customers knew that their cakes were not going to glow in the dark, they were all very happy with their cakes.

How did you try using the tonic water? Someone had posted on here before that they sprayed their fondant with tonic water, let it dry, and then sprayed it again, let it dry and I think did that a few other times and it worked. You can order edible glow in the dark paint from Australia but it would take like a month to get it so if have time I know that would work. Artisan cake company has used that unless you can find the edible glow in the dark body paint like on cake boss but I haven't had luck finding that. I'm gonna test out the tonic water method over the next few days just to see. I make my own fondant as well with marshmallows and instead of using the 3 tablespoons of water I normally use in it, I'm gonna replace that with the tonic water. Hopefully it will give it some kind of glow.

Liz Marek has a post, it's her Tardis cake I believe, in her site; ArtisanCakeCo. There's a link to the edible paints she uses & where she purchased from. She also did an awesome cake with jellyfish for a televised cake going to an aquarium, anyway, I believe she has a short video of her checking out the paints (also on her site-videos or YouTube as well under the same name or TheSugarGeek, which is her Patreon page). 

HowSweetIsThat.com does sell the paints in the US.  Good luck. 

I couldn't find where it was sold in the US. That link didn't work. But I did test out the tonic water on a little bright colored fondant. Although it worked a little, not enough to actually tell. Really just the bright fondant was showing. So I've decided to try putting glow sticks around the bottom of each tier instead. I'm just going to activate them right before I deliver it and they can easily take them off right before serving the cake. 

I love the glow stick idea!  I have used the Americolor Electric colors when I need neon-ish hues.  They work well.  

Love, love, love the Americolor electric colors; especially the yellow.  The brightness is great.

I'll post once I get it done with the glowsticks! I just think its a great alternative since its not easily or cheap to get a hold of.