Edible Gold Leaf

Edible gold leaf is a type of metal leaf that you can use in order to add that little extra extravagance to your food. Edible gold is often used as a dessert decoration such as for wedding cakes or chocolates. However, it can also be used for food decoration on a wide variety of dishes. This being a tradition going back thousands of years. As such, edible gold sheets can often be applied to savoury dishes as well. An famous and potentially infamous modern example being the salt bae gold steak.

When using edible gold, many people will wonder whether the gold leaf sheets used are real or imitation gold. Whilst imitation edible gold does exist, more often than not, real gold is what you will see when looking at edible gold leaf sheets.

However, this won’t just be any old gold though. Instead, it will be as near to completely pure 24 karat gold as possible. The reason is pure gold that lacks contaminants making it biologically inert. As such, it will pass through the digestive tract without reacting in any way at all.

When it comes to our edible gold product lines though, there are two types of products available to you. These are edible gold in the form of gold leaf sheets and those in gold leaf flakes. Each of which is used in distinct ways to decorate your food with gold.

Edible Gold Sheets

When wanting to layer edible gold on top of your food, edible gold leaf sheets are the best way to go. This is because these will come in a sheet of gold that can be easily layered atop the food and simply secured.

Our sheets are available as transfer/patent leaf or in loose-leaf booklets. Each of which can come in batches of 25, 50, 100 or 500 sheets. Every sheet though will be 80mm squares in dimensions. As such, these make for an easy and even measurement for applying to food in large consistent layers.

Additionally, they, like any edible gold, are classified as a natural food additive. As such they are incredibly pure examples of gold due to being 23.75 Karats.

Loose Leaf

Loose leaf sheets are a type of edible gold sheet that is kept in individual tissue paper compartments. Doing this will allow the gold leaf sheets to be easily removed from the booklet. This is accomplished by simply dropping it from the packet or extracting it with a gilder’s knife. Following which you can place it on a gilder’s cushion. It can then be laid atop the desired food.

Transfer/Patent Leaf

On the other hand, though, transfer leaf (or patent leaf) will be initially stuck to the tissue paper itself. Here though the size of the book itself will be slightly larger. However, the individual sheets will retain the same dimensions.

The reason for this is that doing so will allow you to shape the leaf. This being done with a gilder’s knife before removing it. Additionally, these sheets can be layered atop the food in question with the gold side touching it. Following this, rubbing the back of the tissue paper gently with a cotton bud will press the edible gold onto the food. Simultaneously, this will also remove the tissue paper.

Edible Gold Flakes

Another option for using edible gold to decorate food though is to decorate it with some edible gold flakes. Doing so is incredibly simple to do as all it requires is that you sprinkle a tweezer pinch of the flakes atop the dish in question. The result of which is a wonderfully subtle yet extravagant addition to your food or drink.

As with the sheets of edible leaf, edible gold flakes are extremely pure in quality with a 23.75 Karat rating. Additionally, these edible flakes will come in 150mg jars and include a set of bamboo tweezers in order to delicately place the gold flakes where you wish on your dish.

FAQ – Edible Gold Leaf

What is edible gold leaf made of?

Edible gold leaf comes in the form of either gold flakes or sheets of gold leaf in books of 25 sheets. In order for it to be edible though, the gold leaf must be made from incredibly pure gold of at least 22 Karats. The reason is that pure gold will be biologically inert and therefore have no adverse effect on the human body. That being said though, imitation gold leaf made from zinc or copper can also be edible but only in smaller quantities.

Is it safe to eat gold leaf?

When you are considering eating gold leaf, you should only do so if the purity is at least 22 Karats gold. This is due to the fact that pure gold is biologically inert meaning it will harmlessly pass through the digestive tract. That said though, edible imitation gold made from zinc and copper can also be consumed but only in small quantities.

What does edible gold leaf taste like?

Edible gold leaf is a type of incredibly pure gold that is applied to food and drinks for the purpose of decoration. Due to being used with food though, edible gold must obviously be safe to eat. As such, only pure gold of at least 22 Karats should be consumed. Due to this though, the gold will be biologically inert and will as a result not have any taste to it. However, edible gold will add a slightly crunchy texture to the dish, although decoration is often the primary purpose.

Why is gold leaf so cheap?

Gold has a reputation for being a particularly expensive precious metal. However, the gold leaf will often be something that is surprisingly cheap to most people. The reason why some gold leaf can be cheap is that it is either imitation gold leaf or not very high in karat purity. That said though, even high karat gold leaf may be more affordable than you’d expect. The reason for this is that gold leaf is intended for gilding projects and will therefore come in very thin gold paper. As such, the quantities of gold on these square sheets when you buy gold leaf may be smaller than you would initially anticipate.