Luster Dust Question!!!...how To Get Gold Look
Decorating By steffy8 Updated 26 Sep 2007 , 3:11pm by stephanie214
Thanks so much for all the great info! I guess I'm still not getting dry dusting. If I take a dry piece of molded chocolate and a brush and sweep luster dust over it, it will stick? Am I missing a step? It seems the slick surface of the melted and molded candy wouldn't allow the luster dust to adhere.
Thanks so much for all the great info! I guess I'm still not getting dry dusting. If I take a dry piece of molded chocolate and a brush and sweep luster dust over it, it will stick? Am I missing a step? It seems the slick surface of the melted and molded candy wouldn't allow the luster dust to adhere.
I feel ya there! I have always heard of "wet dusting" can you "dry dust " chocolate and how? Can you "dry dust fondant and buttercream and how? 
Dude, buff it! Sweet, I wouldn't have thought of that! Of course, I didn't think it could be done in the first place! 
I'm beginning to see that I don't practice near enough. Think I'll start a thread about that! My candy molds will be in this week, I'll make some trial molds and practice on them. Thanks you guys! You've really helped me a lot!
Buff with a fluffy brush. For the gold it will turn solid gold color. On fondant it works great! If you are adding super pearl you can dab it in the dust and aplly to the cake. Sweep the brush back and forth very quickly and it will get a nice sheen,
How do you get the gold look with luster dust??? I tried and it didn't have any "luster". I love the gold look and want to learn how. Please help
Hey steffy8
hope i am not to late.... i use aztec gold luster dust and it paints really well. in my pics is my daughter peyton's 8th birthday cake and i used the aztec gold color to paint her name and number....
kylie
Buffing dusts -
use a big fat cosmetic brush from the dollar store, the biggest you can find.
It works every time!
Theresa 
OK, my luster dusting is failing miserably! I cannot get it to stick to the molded candy. The slick surface won't let it grab. I've tried both yellow and white candy melts, dry and wet dusting. After I spread it out with the wet, it just ran in to the lower places on the candy and pooled. HELP!!!!! 
Well, I have trudged through and finished. Not a cake I will be posting here! Not the worst I've done, but I won't want to say it was mine compared to some of my others! I found out I have the Wilton version of luster dust and it wasn't intended to be used wet. So, I did the best I could with it. It looks like a piece of white molded candy with glittery accents. That turned out well. But, my red was too bright so it threw the whole cake off. Just gave up after that. It's for my father-in-law so at least I'm not going to be asking someone to pay me for that! Chalk it up to learning!
Ok, so here is my experience with gold dust, mixed with lemon extract, then painted onto fondant.
I will warn you, this was my very first ever fondant cake. It was just so I could play around with fondant, and my friend knew in advance her cake would not be pretty. It was kind of a last minute thing, also.
The chocolate roses and writing were done with store bought canned frosting, so that's why they're so droopy. Still, I was able to paint them, even as soft as they were. Very light touch.
All the gold drops are kind of humorous. I was painting one part of the cake, and when I went to dip my brush I "accidently" dripped some of the gold paint, well it was out of place, so I decided to fix it by dipping the brush and just slinging the paint all over the cake to make it look intentional. haha
Luckily, the cake inside was just delicious. It was my first ganache filling and Jenny and her family absolutely loved it. So, I will definitely be making that part again.
I'm open to any comments and/or criticisms. This was the only cake I have with gold painted on, otherwise I would have definitely shown a different one. I just wanted to show how pretty the gold is, and how easily it can be applied, since I was able to do it to very soft canned frosting. I'm definitely not trying to show off any skills.. haha
I bought my gold from sugarcraft.com. I also have silver and copper, which are just as exquisite and a very little bit goes a long long way. Very affordable, too.
I hope this post helps someone.
**edit* I don't know if anyone noticed, but you can actually see a reflection on the side of the cake from the light shining off the gold paint. It was still wet.. I did the flowers and painting in just a few minutes before walking out the door. Just as shiny after it dried, though.
What's sad is how badly you talked about this cake and then how good it looks in the pictures! Girl, I was picturing something MUCH worse! I plan on ordering some luster dust and a few other things. I've heard sugarcraft is good. Thanks for making my cake look REALLY bad! 
As much as I appreciate the compliment, I can assure you it really didn't look that great. That's just pictures of the decent parts.
The fondant was gross, too. I still don't have a feel for it. I'm going to try the marshmallow fondant again sometime this week, though, or maybe the chocolate wrap.
Wish me luck! 
p.s. You can cover almost anything with a well placed flower.
Flowers & royal icing are my next 2 conquests! Definitely try the MMF. I've been working with it for over a year now and I love it! It's great for accents and molding. I'm about to try Rhonda's ultimate from this website to have a second option that's not so sweet.
I have a question about the luster dust being edible a local distrubutor's website says that it is not intended for consumption. Does anyone have any information on this? I will provide a link to their webpage. Thanks in advance.
http://www.caketop.ca/index.html
I "think", but please do not quote me on this, all dusts are like that. They are edible, and they are non-toxic, but they really shouldn't be consumed in massive amounts. I mean, if you paint a whole cake in gold, I wouldn't advise someone sitting down and eating a plate full of the painted fondant, not that anyone would.
Keep in mind, most of the gold and silver dusts are actually made from real gold and silver. It's completely edible, and non toxic as it says, but who wants to sit down and eat a bunch of metal?
So, they prefer it only be used for decoration. I think it's the same for powder made from chalk, too.
This is only my opinion, of course. I have nothing to back me up on this, it's just bits and pieces of things I've read or heard on the cooking shows I watch.
They also might be obligated to post something like that for legal reasons. So, let's say if someone were to ingest it, then found out they were allergic, they can't go back and say well it wasn't written anywhere I shouldn't ingest it.. It just said it's edible and non toxic.
Again, just a guess. I hope someone else here will have better insight on this, as I'm very curious myself now if I've been thinking wrong all this time..
Holly
I agree with Holly, but I also believe that because the dusts have not been approved by the FDA, they HAVE to say it. I believe I read somewhere (a deco. magazine) that they are pushing to get more items like these for decorators approved. This is also why the dragees say they are for decoration only/craft item. I know that for three generations we have been using them to make Christmas cookies and no one has any ill effects!
Again, Holly is correct in that none of us are going to sit down and eat the entire disco ball (in my gallery- which I recommended they take all the tiles off just to be safe).
...well, actually I COULD eat the entire cake myself...which explains my signature line! LOL!!
-Michelle
I went on "Cakes By George" website and he gave the tip of using olive oil mixed with silver or Gold lustre dust..I tried it and it went on just like paint..beautiful everytime..a little bit of olive oil goes a long way..experiment, but that's all I use for all my gold or silver work..happy icing, C.
With the methods presented here will I get a nifty gold like in the Ace of Cakes episode where they did Kings Tut's Head? I LOVED the way that looked but not sure how to achieve it. It looked like they painted on liquid gold. Very curious.
Here's a link where you can purchase gold glaze which is basically gold luster dust already mixed for you. It also comes in silver and pearl. I purchased some at my local cake decorating store yesterday and it is amazing. http://www.shopbakersnook.com/m5_view_item.html?m5:item=3276
Here's a link where you can purchase gold glaze which is basically gold luster dust already mixed for you. It also comes in silver and pearl. I purchased some at my local cake decorating store yesterday and it is amazing. http://www.shopbakersnook.com/m5_view_item.html?m5:item=3276
Tiggy, that link isn't working for me.
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