North Central Phoenix resident Michelle Tincombe will tell you that her mission is nothing less than to revolutionize the art of baking … with an emphasis on art.

Her new invention, which took several years of development, combines her love of art and baking.

Michelle Tincombe, center, inventor of Sugarprism edible food paints, shows Liz Frye how to airbrush a cookie with one of her paints, while Brett Nosal stands by for his turn, during a class last month at ABC Cake Decorating in Phoenix (photo by Teri Carnicelli).

As a creator of custom cakes, cookies and candies, Tincombe has invented a product that she believes is a game-changer for anyone who likes to add an artistic touch to their baked creations. It’s an “edible food paint” that can be applied to sweet treats the same ways that artists put paint on canvas: with a paintbrush, sprayed, stamped or splattered, or in a myriad of other ways.

It was a request for a Monet painting cake that took Ingalls down the path toward inventing her product. She recalls, “I had all these colorful pieces of fondant that I was trying to arrange on a cake and it was not working for me. I thought, you know, this would be so much easier if I could just paint this on a cake.” So she researched what professional cake decorators used to paint cakes, and found that they used food colors.

Trying it out herself, she couldn’t stand the bitter flavor of the food colors, and the way the colors bled into each other. Frustrated and unable to find anything like what she wanted, she decided to create something herself.

“I started experimenting with different ingredients in my own kitchen. It turned into a lot of research and development and experimenting. I looked like a mad scientist in the kitchen,” she says, laughing at the memory.

Her dedication and hard work eventually paid off with the product she dreamed of: edible food paints in a rainbow of colors. Her line of product is called Sugarprism.

“It tastes sweet like vanilla. It paints much like acrylic paint. It dries like acrylic paint. You can completely overlap the colors, you don’t get that horrible bleeding effect like you do with food colors. Anything you can think of to do with regular paint, you can do with these,” she says with pride. “It was specifically created for edible masterpieces.”

Since launching the product last year, Tincombe has also become a teacher, offering classes in cookie painting at bakeries, venues and homes throughout the Valley.

Tincombe stresses that you don’t have to be an artist or professional baker to use the paints. In her classes she teaches a variety of techniques that don’t require any artistic skill. Tools like stencils and stamps, and techniques like sponging and spraying are easy for anyone to use and get attractive results.

She’s also started a YouTube channel featuring short tutorials of various techniques and design ideas using the paints.

The Sugarprism edible paints are available locally at the ABC Cake Decorating store. They are also available online at www.sugarprism.com, where you can find information about how to book a cake- or cookie-painting class in your home.

 

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