Black & Gold

There are some color combinations that are simply classic, and black and gold is truly one of them. It can be masculine, feminine, elegant, dramatic and dark. Sometimes all at the same time!

We get requests to create cakes in this color scheme quite often. Most are for birthdays, but occasionally we will receive a request a black & gold wedding cake as well. Many shy away from using black on cakes given that eating black icing isn’t too attractive as it can stain your mouth. There are a few steps bakers can take to minimize this.

First, you can start with chocolate icing, which of course is already brown in color. It will take a bit less black food coloring to go from brown to black than from white (buttercream) to black. Another option is when you make your chocolate buttercream you can use a black cocoa powder, which will turn your chocolate buttercream much darker than regular cocoa powder and will require even less black food coloring.

We always start with a crumb coat of icing on our cakes to lock in the crumbs and moisture before the final coat of icing. Keeping the crumb coat white buttercream will leave a bit of icing under the black icing, so guests eating the cake can avoid the black icing and still have some buttercream with each bite of cake. The final option is to cover your cake in black fondant with a layer of white buttercream underneath. Fondant doesn’t stain mouths near as much as buttercream will. Realistically most people will peel off the fondant and only eat the cake and icing underneath, thus keeping their mouths black dye-free.

The black on all the cakes above is buttercream with the exception of the center cake on the bottom row. This cake is covered in fondant.

The other half of the black and golf dynamic duo is, of course, GOLD! Each of the cakes above use gold in different ways. Adding pops of gold through sugar flowers is very popular. The sugar peony flower and sugar magnolia flower are perfect examples of this. You can paint the edges or centers of these flowers for the perfect gold accent. To paint these accents, you’ll need an edible gold paint. You can use this to paint directly on buttercream or paint fondant accents.

Below are links to some of our favorite products used in the cakes above:

Happy Decorating!