Star Sparkle Birthday Cake

For this 80th birthday cake, the client wanted something with a lot of sparkle! She sent me her inspiration piece, which was a small part of the party invitation (which happened to have a cake sketch). My job was to bring the sketch to life. I made eight stars (for the eight decades she was celebrating) in fondant and attached them to sugar flower wires that were then spray painted gold. I used a special technique to achieve a clean presentation for placing the large gold dragees. I first made the mistake of pressing the dragee into the chilled buttercream, which then displaced some of the buttercream into messy "waves" around the dragee. I then found that if I chiseled out a small hole and placed the dragee inside, it kept the buttercream perfectly smooth and held the dragee in place. Very fun project, thanks again!