In March 2019's issue of Cake Decoration & Sugarcraft, we teamed up with our friends at Rainbow Dust to show you how to paint on black sugarpaste and create this incredibly on-trend fashion cake!
This design has been beautifully created by none other than Rosie Dummer - AKA Rosie Cake Diva! She is a presenter, compère and a star of Channel 4’s award winning series ‘Extreme Cake Makers’. Rosie demonstrates cake-decorating skills to all levels of enthusiasts, whilst creating increasingly high profile, show-stopping cake designs. Rosie’s creations have appeared on BBC’s Graham Norton Show and even at Buckingham Palace. She is currently filming the next series of Extreme Cake Makers.
Painting on Black Sugarpaste
You will need:
Oil Burner and tea light or alternative way to gently warm your cocoa butter
Cocoa Butter
Rainbow Dust Powder Colour
Paint Brushes
"Painting with powder colour and cocoa butter allows you to layer colours on top of each other and is a perfect way of painting on dark sugar paste. Whereas painting with powder and alcohol can give a water colour effect, with cocoa butter it is more like oil painting and opens up lots more possibilities. It can even be painted directly onto chocolate ganache which has set."
1 In order to work with the cocoa butter, you will need to keep it in melted form. These ceramic oil burners are cheap to buy and can be a simple way of keeping your cocoa butter warm. In the absence of such a burner you can simply keep your cocoa butter above a bowl of hot water.
2 In a ceramic dish or on a plate the cocoa butter will melt quickly.
3 Add a small amount of Rainbow Dust Powder Colour to your plate as well as a little cocoa butter.
4 With a brush, mix a little of the cocoa butter into your powder.
5 Build up the colour in layers by starting with faint strokes. You can achieve a stronger effect by using a higher concentration of the powder colour.
6 When painting on black you can map out the shapes in white. This will enable you to see all the subsequent colours more vividly.
7 Let the first coat dry before building up the next layer.
8 To develop the flower add not only the colour but the strokes. Imagine the centre of the flower and work outwards from that point. If you want to soften the colour you can use a dry brush to blend it.
9 Build up the colours using slightly more concentrated pigment. Add the yellow centre by applying concentrated dots. Note that by adding other colours such as brown and orange you can create the impression of texture.
10 Also try to vary the shades of green and yellow to create the stalks. This method allows you to build up the colours as much as you want.
And there you have it, an amazing on-trend design and so versatile!
Don't forget, there's always oodles of inspiration in any issue of Cake Decoration & Sugarcraft magazine!
