Opulent Gold

All that glitters is not gold, but it should be when it's cake!  I had the pleasure of designing a very dramatic cake with gilded details and deep red roses.  I loved making this cake not only for the uniqueness of it, but because I got to do a lot of painting in the form of gilding.  It isn't the usual thing I do, although I often add lustre, this gold detail is a beast of it's own.  Very temperamental and required a very stead hand.  But in the late late hours of the night and early early morning I found it very soothing.  A tip to help keep the gold more "glittery" would be to use glaze instead of alcohol or lemon extract mixed in with your highlighting colour.  Glaze gives the gold more lasting shine.  I meant to use it on the blue gem details but time just ran out.  On a side though, make sure you have the cleaner that goes along with it as this medium will ruin your brushes.  I used a very fine nail art brush on the edges of my gold details and a small natural hair brush for everything else.  The deep red of the roses was achieved using an airbrush.  The blue gems and monogram used various shades of blue with silver to get a lustre.