Over the 32 years that I have been decorating cakes, some techniques and materials used in decorating have changed or improved, as well as styles. For example, I have been designing cakes for Eagle Court of Honors for many years. I used to use piping gel, tinted with just a tiny bit of black paste color to get a gray color (which didn't taste very good) to fill in the metal portion of the Eagle badge. I did this because there was no metallic silver available to put on cakes that was edible. The same was true with gold metallic color. The nearest thing you could put on a cake was an ugly golden yellow color. Now, both silver and gold edible metallic colors are available, in both dusting powders and airbrush colors, which gives you the actual color you need and desire. I have used the silver dusting powder to paint on my Air Force emblems. Just recently, I purchased silver airbrush color which makes the work a lot faster and simpler. The results are wonderful. I also purchased a pearl airbrush color, which you can spray over an entire surface (fondant for example) to give a lovely shiny pearl appearance. I am excited to try it.
