How to use edible gold in cooking

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by Briar Miller

Created on: January 23, 2011 Last Updated: May 19, 2011

The idea of using edible gold in cooking opens up a world of dazzling treats. Edible gold has been used in cooking for hundreds of years. For example, it was popular amongst the Italian aristocracy in the 16th century, where it was used to decorate risottos. This enabled them to cut a dash in society, and it will do the same for you.

Edible gold is basically gold which is very pure, at least 22ct. When gold is used for other purposes, it is mixed with varying amounts of other metals, such as copper, which are not edible. This is because pure gold is extremely delicate and difficult to work with. Edible gold supplied for cooking will only be mixed with silver, which is also edible. We can't digest gold as such, but it will pass through us without doing us any harm.

Edible gold is available most commonly in leaf and dust form. Bearing in mind that gold has nothing to offer nutritionally, and is expensive, the best uses it can be put to in cooking are decorative. Below are a few ideas to get the creative juices flowing.

Edible gold dust

This can be used in the same way that icing sugar is used to decorate cakes and biscuits. In fact a mixture of icing sugar and gold dust looks absolutely stunning and would be entirely appropriate for Christmas. The easiest way to do this would be using a salt shaker (either new, or well washed out and dried). Simply sprinkle, sprinkle away!

Stencils are a wonderful way to add class. You can buy ready made stencils or make them yourself. If you are not much of an artist or do not have a steady hand this might be the most effective approach for you. Find pictures of shapes you want from magazines etc, cut round them, then draw them on cardboard and cut them out. Using letter stencils is a great way to decorate a birthday cake.

You need not limit yourself to sweet things, any time you want to add some sparkle and pizazz to your table, get out the sprinkler!

Edible gold leaf

Gold leaf is very delicate and difficult to manage. It is almost impossible to use it with bare fingers as it sticks, making it tear and scrunch far too easily. It is necessary to use something like tweezers, which must be very clean and dry.

The uses of gold leaf are therefore different to that of gold dust. It is often used simply to lay over the top of a cake. This is easy to do by just laying whole sheets of gold leaf over the top so that the corners hang down the sides, without having to go in for too much manipulation.

A stunning effect can be created quite simply by cutting the leaf into rough squares, then adding them to bakes or casseroles at the mixing stage, before baking. Gold leaf squares also look great stuck into the mashed potato topping of a shepherd's pie!

If you are feeling a bit more ambitious you could try cutting your gold leaf into squares, then gently pinching the squares in the middle to create a shape which is something like a star or a flower.

If you hunt about on the internet you can find other forms of edible gold for easy use, such as gold paint and pre cut gold leaf letters.

Some more ideas:

Lasagne with gold leaf in the layers
Filo parcels wrapped in gold leaf
Soup with gold leaf flowers floating on top
Gold leaf squares tossed into the salad

Gold dust sprinkled all over the whole main course and the plate . If you rub some olive oil very thinly onto your cutlery, you can sprinkle them with gold dust too.

In 1990, the most expensive pizza ever made was sold for £2,150. It was made by Domenica Crolla who included edible gold as one of the toppings. (BBC News Dec 8th 1990)