Instructions

1. Set up in a cool, dry, draft-free space. Warmth and humidity interfere with the adhesion, and because gold leaf is so thin and light, a breeze can catch it. Confirm that your hands are cool and completely dry, and that all surfaces and implements are totally dry, too.

2. Stir a small spoonful of confectioner's sugar into about half a cup of cool water until it dissolves. This sugar water is your adhesive for sticking the gold leaf onto the wedding cake.

3. Measure the cake areas to be coated with gold leaf using a flexible tape measure or a piece of string. Jot down the measurements.

4. Use the sugar water to coat the first area of the cake you will cover with gold leaf. Apply it with a small, soft-bristled paintbrush.

5. Using a knife, cut a piece of gold leaf just large enough to coat the first part of the cake that you're gilding, using the measurements you took. If the gold leaf has an adhesive sheet on the back, peel it off carefully before cutting. Other paper backings can be cut with the gold leaf, then separated with the sharp end of the knife blade.

6. Press the edible gold leaf gently, slowly and carefully onto the segment coated with the sugar water. Try to keep it smooth. Use a second dry small, soft-bristled paintbrush to press the gold leaf onto the cake and to smooth and polish the leaf.

7. Repeat the application process one segment at a time, otherwise the sugar water will dry out before you get to applying subsequent sections of gold leaf.