My SIL saw this cake on pinterest and wanted me to make it for her wedding shower. How do you think this was done? It doesn't look pipped, it's completely flat. Do you think it was all hand painted? If it is, how do you get the black lines that dark?

http://abloomaffair.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/tiffanyglass_weddingcake2.jpg


Thanks!

Hi apesusi,

My best guess would be that you are correct. The cake is hand painted. I would say they used an edible marker to draw the outlines of where the black icing would be piped. Then they used food coloring and a clear alcohol to paint. Then they traced over the marker lines with black icing. If you had an airbrush, you could also then spray the whole cake with Pearl Luster which would give it a nice sheen. Just a guess.

Chris

That's a Maggie Austin design -- she does a lot of painted cakes. http://maggieaustincake.com/?page_id=16

You can also do this with piping gel with food coloring mixed in. It will be shiny though. I've seen the technique in a Colette Peters book.

It looks like she painted the lines with with a fine tipped paintbrush and then went back and painted in the color on the fondant. I just did that myself, but I piped all of the black with royal so that it looked more like the black in a real stained glass window. You can use lemon extract and powdered food colors or petal dust. You can also add pearl and lustre dusts to piping gel if you prefer to use that, but it stays a little sticky.

http://cakecentral.com/gallery/2253231/sun-and-moon-stained-glass-cake

Thanks everyone. It seems like whenever I paint with black food coloring and alcohol, it ends up streaky, and not even like this cake. Does working with powder food coloring work better than gel food coloring?