naphtalia's Full Review: Super Gold 43 1233 Luster Dust 2g
I love watching the cake decorating contests on t.v. It's great fun to watch people who normally spend 40 hours on a single cake knock one out in 8 or 9 hours. Most impressive to me are the variety of techniques they bring to the table. Talking about the cake decorating I do in the same paragraph with them is like talking about my driving ability next to a NASCAR professional.
Abilities aside, I get to play with a lot of the same tools with which they create their art. Among my favorites is lustre dust. Lustre dust is designed to provide a subtle sheen to cakes, cookies and other confections. It is usually applied on top of royal icing, fondant or gumpaste. I've used it with excellent results on Rice Krispy Marshmallow Treats. ... more on that later.
Lustre dust is intended to be used dry, but may also be mixed with oil-based flavorings or white spirits (a.k.a. vodka, gin or light rum...usually vodka) for painting and highlighting. It is not water soluble so trying to paint with it and water does not work. The Super Gold Lustre Dust comes in a 2 gram container which can go a very long way.
I've used Lustre Dust in the autumn on fondant covered "ears of corn" cakes. I used a soft, thin brush to dust the golden ears with gold. I also used the gold Lustre Dust to add shimmery highlights to the gum paste leaves.
I've mixed the Super Gold Lustre Dust with a little vodka. The less vodka, the more dense the color paints on. How much to use is a matter of experimentation. If you prefer not to use vodka, you can also use lemon or almond extract. In a pinch, I've also used lemon juice, but that took ages to dry. Once I have the paint made, I will apply it with a fine pointed brush. I can paint crisp lines. I had a friend who used it to create a cake that looked like her mother-in-law's good china. The real plates were rimmed with gold. For the cake, the bottom tier was decorated to look like the edge of the cake plates. You could also use it to make other kinds of gilt lines and decorations.
I have also used the same vodka and lustre dust technique when I've made chocolate covered cherries. I will take use the Lustre Dust paint to decorate the chocolate shell. If you're not up to making your own chocolates, you could certainly bump up the wow factor by doing this with a box of Whitman's or Russell Stover's chocolates.
When I make Rice Krispy Marshmallow Treats, I will often cut them out in shapes, roll them into balls, or press them into molds. I find the dry Lustre Dust is the perfect thing to roll these in. When we made a Wizard of Oz cake for a friend's birthday, the yellow brick road was a series of Rice Krispie Treats dusted with both yellow and/or gold lustre dust. Dusts can be blended ogether to create different colors.
There are a few types of decorating dusts you're likely to come across once you start playing at cake decorating. They are not interchangeable, but it's useful to know what they are. Lustre dusts are intended to give subtle colors with a high sheen and metallic-like finish.
Sparkle dust works much like Lustre Dust but has larger grains of color. On gumpaste flowers, it gives a dewy looking sparkle. You may also encounter something called petal dusts or blossom tints. These are intended to provide a deeper color and a matte finish. Most folks will use them primarily with gum paste or fondant. These can also be used to color powdered sugar. The colors of petal dusts will grow more intense when mixed with liquid.
All these products can be used alone or in combination to create different effects.
I have never spent 40 hours creating a single cake. My cakes will never look like theirs do. That's why they make the big bucks. However, using the right tools will take my cakes out of the realm of the standard home cook's cake decorating. Super Gold Lustre Powder is versatile and really easy to use....and it will give your baked goods a professional shine.
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