I'm going to be making my parents 25th anniversary cake, using fondant for the first time. My question is has anyone ever mixed the pearl dust (luster dust?) into their fondant? Maybe mix it in with the powdered sugar? If anyone has tried this I'd love to hear how it turned out.
Hello and welcome, as
@Becky pointed out it would require a lot of luster dust. Luster dust in the US is one of those products that is not clearly labeled. But it generally contains cornstarch.
Another reason you would not add luster dust to the fondant is it contains cornstarch.
Cornstarch will dry out fondant, causing it to wrinkle and crack.
Since this is your first time using fondant take care not to use too much powdered sugar when you roll the find it out. Powdered sugar contains 3% cornstarch to act as an anti-caking agent. As you roll the fondant the powdered sugar becomes embedded into the fondant. Too much and the cornstarch will dry out the fondant.
As a general rule in baking, whenever you want to mix separate products, always look at the ingredients of each product and ask if there’s any conflict of ingredients. For example if you want to add chocolate to whipped cream, the water in the cream will seize the chocolate.
Now just because there’s a conflict doesn’t mean you can’t blend the two. You would just need to know if there is a way to resolve the conflict. In the example of the whipped cream and chocolate, if you make a pastry cream, then add the chocolate to the pastry cream, then mix the whipped cream into the chocolate pastry cream you won’t have a problem with the chocolate seizing.
So it’s just a matter of identifying any potential problems and then figuring out a way to work around it.
