Hay Y'all,

My DD is turning 9 and we are making a cake that has chalk as medium for decorating.

This is the link http://www.wilton.com/idea/Write-Your-Own-Drama

My question is: Can I put the chalk in the food processor, then strain/sift it where we want it? Or do we have to grind it into a powder using the strainer?

I am confussed....Chalk on a cake...

Thanks for the help,
S1eepygrl and soon to be 9 yr old DD

Had to read it for myself...yep, it really says 'chalk'! I'm just a hobby baker and no expert on anything at all, but I think I'd use petal dust instead. The idea of chalk on a cake just seems icky (to use the technical term!). JMHO

petal dust is super fine ground chalk........ you are supos to grate your chalk against a fine wire strainer which I never found owrked all that well.... I found a pestal and mortar worked ok... you can make small amounts then....HTH

You can use chalk on things that won't be eaten, like gumpaste flowers. It's what we used before petal dust was easy to find. The old Wilton books use chalk on gumpaste. I wouldn't use it on an actual cake.

If you want the same effect in an edible, easy to find product, and don't mind it having some sparkle, use Wilton's copper pearl dust. If you don't want the sparkle, then buy some petal dust. I think the reason Wilton isn't recommending petal dust is because they don't make it. You might also be able to get the same effect with a tiny bit of ivory gel color mixed with vodka and then put on with a sponge or a really soft paintbrush that you dabbed on the fondant.

If you decide to use chalk, when they talk about grinding it with a strainer, it just means to take the piece of chalk and rub it against the wire mesh surface of a strainer until it turns to powder. It's easy to do by hand and doesn't take very much dust to color something. I wouldn't grind chalk with the food processor.

Just thinking I read a thread a while back about people using chalk on cakes- maybe try a search to get more info?

Thanks for all the suggestions. since we already bought chalk and it will be on fondant, we are going to use it. If I need it again then we will use the petal dust.

Thanks again!!!

Even if chalk is non-toxic, it's not manufactured with the same standards as food. That means that if something like metal shavings or rodent droppings ended up in it, they wouldn't throw out the whole batch, just pick out what they could find. That's why it's not generally used on something like fondant that will be eaten. I use chalk on gumpaste flowers sometimes, but I always make my gumpaste flowers on wire, so they're already not edible, even before the chalk.

I am surprised that Wilton is suggesting it, honestly.

Interesting post...just this week-end I was trying chalk on gumpaste flowers...I was thinking that it could be possibly quite a bit less expensive than the dusts and I would have quite an arsenal of colors.

After trying chalk vs dusts, I found that the chalk didn't go on as well as the dusts....(maybe just stroking the chalk and not grinding it up had something to do with it.) In addition, it seemed like I needed to stroke harder to get the color on the flower which was NOT good for the petals..guess we know where this is going

I have read in quite a few books that they do tell you that you can use chalk as it is "non-toxic". (Which is why I tried in the first place)

Think that I will just use the dusts, they just seem to be of better quality and are eaiser to use. (MHO)

If you can find non toxic chalk pastel it works much better than just chalk. I use it all of the time. Much cheaper than dusts.

I have also seen where royal icing was tinted and then spread thinly on a cookie sheet. After it had dried, it was then scraped off and was a powder.

Here's a couple of other threads discussing chalk.

http://imgsrc.cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopict-664757-.html

http://cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopic-684940-previous.html


As dsilvest said, the non-toxic chalk pastel are the ones to use, not just regular pastel kids chalk, which is way to light. The pastels are intense colors and not a dry as regular kids chalk so they work as well as (IMO better than) petal dust.

I find the best way to get the chalk dust is just to take a piece of paper and scribble over and over in one spot, you wind up with a nice little pile of fine chalk dust!

I have also use make up - eye shadow and blush on some of my faux cakes.

I was using the pastel chalks...and since I have them, I think that I'll try and and add the corn starch after I get a nice little pile of chalk dust!!

Thanks for the info!