Sequin cake

I've seen a few sequin cakes recently and decided to give it a go myself! You can use any colour lustre dust to make the metallic look but I chose gold for this 50th birthday cake.

I bought a few bags of edible confetti off eBay (in bags of 50 grams), I wasn't sure how much I would need. I used less than 50 grams for this cake- however, the cake I covered was only a 4/5 inch cake.

They are really small and quite colourful! I'm not sure if you can get them neutral coloured or white (this would be so much easier to do believe me.)

I covered a cake with fondant (see above) then painted it with water. It may be wise to use edible glue because I found they didn't stick as well as when I've done this technique with sprinkles.

I took a handful and slowly moved them up the cake for them to stick to the fondant (please ignore the sticks sticking out of the top!) until the entire cake was covered.

I used my painbrush and fingers to pick up loose confetti and stuck them in sections that were very obviously empty and filled in the gaps. It doesn't need to be completely filled, however the texture will be better the more sequins are stuck on.

I would then leave the cake either over night or for a few hours until all the wayer had dried and the sequins are properly stuck to the fondant.

Next you will need :

lustre dust (any colour you like- I chose gold as it is for a 50th)

Glitter (optional)

Clear alcohol (I think vodka works best but I only had gin...)

Paintbrush

My mistake was not buying enough lustre dust- I used all of the dust in the small pot and could have used a lot more.

I mix a little bit of the spirit with some lustre dust to make a paste. Don't use too much alcohol or it will be too watery. I'm not sure why alcohol works better than water however it doesn't make the same paste, apparently the alcohol also evaporates so it also dries quickly. I think there are alternative for people who don't drink alcohol for personal/religious reasons- I've heard lemon juice works well too.

Start slowly stroking/dabbing the paint over the confetti. Be aware that some of the confetti will fall off and you may be left with gaps/coloured sequins poking through so make sure you have enough left over the end just in case.

You may need to do a few layers

The "paint" should make a thicker paste over the sequins- again, you may see the colours through the paint which isn't what you want! So keep painting until everything is covered.  I then loaded gold glitter onto my paintbrush and dabbed that across it too.

I added it to a cake with ruffles and another tier on top..

Cake without any colour- I also added some glitter around the cakeboard

Then added a large sugar paste rose to add some colour!

I love this cake, I think it wouldn't look out of place at any celebration- especially a wedding or a golden wedding anniversary, but also for birthdays or baby showers etc! I would love to try it in silver or another metallic colour too.