Remember my complete adoration of all things shiny? I do not see that going away any time soon. But lately there has been a lot of talk about which metallic food products are *actually* safe to eat and if you should be using them on cookies in the US if they aren't FDA approved. I thought I was going to have to give up entirely on my quest for the perfect shiny, food-safe gold until I heard about Crystal Colors gold dusts from Anne at Flour Box Bakery. And naturally ordered them 3 seconds later.
Crystal Colors dusts are FDA approved and there are at least 3 different shades of gold dust that I found. It comes in GOLD, ANTIQUE GOLD, and BLUSH GOLD. I got the first two...and now I wish I would have ordered a blush gold too! The first thing that I noticed is that the dust containers are substantially bigger than the tiny luster dust containers I'm used to. It looked like it was at least twice the size and completely full of dust. I did an online ounce to grams conversion and it turns out there is about 14 grams of dust in each container. (Most of my luster dusts are 4 grams.) So...that's nice....but does it work? Let me show you.
I flooded 3 cookies with a different background color. I typically use a gold-ish icing as a base when I know I'm going to paint metallic gold on top later...but I wanted to see how it would stand up to white and black as well. I dry brushed both dusts on to each cookie first, and was NOT impressed. I saw a light shimmer on the white cookie and couldn't see anything on the yellow cookie. There was a light gold color on top of the black icing...but still not really noticeable. (Except for the very top left corner where it had a little butter bleed. SO interesting, right??!!)
I normally paint dusts on wet, so I tried that next. I poured a little bit of dust into the lid of each container and added enough water to make it into a wet paste (about the consistency of latex paint.) I painted both colors on the bottom halves of each cookie. They both looked a little patchy, so when they dried I added a second coat of wet gold to each cookie. After 2 coats, the white cookie is the only one that still looks a little thin. I was really surprised at how well both of these golds covered the black icing. In fact... I may re-think my "gold as a base coat" strategy and go with black instead.
I mean... LOOK AT THIS COOKIE!!! The antique gold is about the same shade as Americolor's gold airbrush color. And that antique gold is a gorgeous, gorgeous light gold color!! Gah! I'm in love. (Again, I know. What can I say? I'm a lover.)
So, the bottom line -- at $8 per container, these end up being much cheaper than the luster dust I normally buy. They are FDA approved and pretty much my dream color of gold. They are absolutely at the top of my gold dust list. (I won't say that I'll never buy a different kind of luster dust...because if a new one comes out, I'm totally going to try it. But these beat out every luster dust I've tried up to this point.)
Want to try some for yourself? I've got a container of Antique Gold to give to one of you! Just click that Easy Entry button below by midnight on Friday, March 18th to enter.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
What do YOU think? Have you tried them? What's your favorite shade of Crystal Colors gold dust?
Can't wait to see if you won? You can get the Crystal Colors dusts HERE.
