Welcome to the Cake Decorators Q&A

Hi there, I’ve just been offered a corporate cup cake project but the buttercream topping has to be in gold! I don’t want to spray lustre spray as I have mixed results with it, is there a way I can colour buttercream gold? Not a dark gold but a light shimmering metallic gold…it’s going to be sat on a bright red foil case!

I’ve looked at the other gold queries on the site but they all seem to be for icing rather than buttercream so any advice would be really appreciated!

Thank you!

Hello JoeB

Tinting buttercream gold with shimmer powder won’t make a great deal of impact as the gold will be lost once you start mixing. If you use heavy liquid gold colour the consistency and taste of the icing will change, and you still won’t have the type of gold you’re visualising. What you can do is experiment making a small batch of gold shimmerless buttercream by mixing yellow, orange and red to get the base colour. Make the basic icing yellow, add a little orange then even smaller amount of red. When you reach a goldie colour stop adding because colours develop after a short time. Ice the cupcake, wait for the icing to completely crust over then just give it a couple of sprays of PME gold spray to get the shine of gold enough to contrast with the red. Feed back would be good if you try this. It would help other members who might want to try gold buttercream icing. I did this with cupcake size lemon cheese cakes topped with cream cheese frosting and gold sugar balls.

Thanks madeitwithlove, it was the spray that I wanted to avoid as it’s very hit and miss…but did think about experimenting in the garden by spraying in the air and then moving the cupcake into its mist…probably a mistake but worth a try!

I will definitely feedback what you’ve said and if I get any other ideas from other members…I have to achieve it so there must be a way! And it needs to be good enough to do 50 cupcakes so it can’t take me hours to achieve once I start!

This http://www.lindyscakes.co.uk/2011/08/08/making-edible-metallic-glitter-a-recipe/ might be what you’re looking for? You could sprinkle the homemade glitter onto your frosting.

Thank you for having me, hope to learn alot from you.