No matter how thick or thin I put the dust on I get brush marks when covering a large surface. I usually use lemon extract but today I tried vodka. I get the same results. Is the only way to use an airbrush? Any help would greatly be appreciated!!

-Krissy

I have never gotten brush strokes....maybe its the brush you are using...???
( I dont mix mine either...just brush them on dry)

I'm using a small brush. Maybe that's it?

I have had brush strokes, and it is mainly because I was using a small "square-tipped" brush that was pretty stiff. I now use a very large brush that I make sure is pretty saturated before I use it - or my small brush for detail work is like a feather (not stiff at all), and is also saturated. I also just picked-up some "edible laquer". It has another name, but I don't have it here with me. I have yet to use it, however it's supposed to help the color spread farther & stay even. It's "confectioner's - something", I asked for "edible laquer" at my specialty shop, and they knew what to get, so maybe try that? One other thing is that after my cakes set in the refrigerator, I get my big brush wet with steaming hot water, stamp out excess, and go over the cake again to make any rough areas smooth-out. If you try that, just be careful not to drag one color across another, which happens even if the cake is pretty chilled, once you've swiped with the brush a couple of times (so I always do the areas where colors meet, first). Good luck!

I put all my dusts on without water/ alcohol just dust on and then with an air puffer blow off excess. PS for above I would not use confectioners glaze first it ruins your brushes secondly it is like glue just dust(reason for being called dust on with a lovely sable brush size depending on area. Goodluck. Also with alcohol to make it thicker.

Sounds like you still need to play with your ratios.. it's usually about equal parts powder to liquid... or maybe it's the brand of powder?

you can also try dry-dusting a little more powder after the wet-coat is dry.... it fills the thinner spots quite well and blends in the brush marks!

I too, just use a brush to put it on. No liquid.

I didn't know it would stick without liquid. I think my problem was too much liquid. In smaller areas it looked great. The large areas were pretty thin. The more I worked with it the better it was looking.

This cake was practice for a much larger cake I have to do this week also in the India theme.

Thanks for your help ladies! I'll be practicing a bit more this week before the final cake!

-Krissy

I only have luck with Pearl Dust. I have luster, petal, etc but none of them cover like Pearl Dust. Pearl Dust & Vodka goes on like paint and dries flawlessly.

bj

I find that when painting with luster dust the fondant should be completely dry and that you should make sure that your cake surface it free of any powdered sugar, cornstarch, fondant specks, etch. Those bits will drag on the brush, making streaks, and may eventually build up enough schmutz that you see it clumping in the dust/extract mixture.

Rae

what a great thread! I'm not sure how you can paint on dry dust onto fondant and have it be even and stay. I was taught that you had to mix it with liquid to use it on gumpaste and fondant. Does anyone have a photo showing a coverage of dry dust?

By the way Krizzy your cake is beautiful! If you look at my Dr. Seuss cake, the middle blue layer was my first time using dust and I had the same problem you did. I did an over layer of another color, and it smoothed it out.

You could try to stiple it on instead of brushing, or maybe sponging.

I've done a few that way... use a large makeup brush (new of course) and dust it on fondant that it fresh... less than half an hour on the cake (I also roll out my fondant with oil rather than icing sugar which may help the stickiness)

The tops of the pink wedding & baptism cakes are dry dusted over white fondant. The hydrangea wedding cake is entirely dry dusted, adn the pumpkin is the metallic gold dry dusted over orange.

The crisco must do the trick! thanks for the tip, I'm going to try that next time.

Wow! I can really see it on the pumpkin. Do you use more dust by doing it dry?

I don't think so, but I really have never compared! You do have to go over and over with the dry brush to get a nice finish (and don't overload the brush) just like applying makeup!

When you dust a cake (dry brush), you get a nice, subtle shine that either allows the base color of the fondant to show through, or enhances the base color (i.e. put orange luster dust on a yellow fondant and you get a shiny yellow fondant that has an orange tint). When you paint using dust mixed with lemon extract, you get a shiny but opaque covering that should obliterate the base color of the fondant (i.e. if you apply silver paint to green fondant, it should look primarily silver).
Similar principles to stenciling methods--dry brush stenciling using powdered pigments lets you see the color of the wall behind it but if you mix it up as a paint, you just see the paint color.

Rae