Hello, I am new to this fantastic site and have a question that I am hoping members might be able to give ideas for. I have been asked to make a 70th birthday cake for a friend and they want a very large grand piano, in the style of Liberaces'. Does anyone have ideas of what I could use to make the whole piano sparkle? I already told them that you can get glitter dust, but they want to go more with actual edible sparkles, like the edible stars. Only problem with this is they are £4.50 a vial and I am thinking maybe that would take a lot of vials?? The cake is going be around 11" x 15" on a 14" x 18" board.

Have you considered Luster Dust? It is edible and would give "luster" or sheen to the piece. Wilton also sells a similar product, the name escapes me at this moment.

The product that you are mentioning I am unfamiliar with.

This is where you would use your professional judgement to make a call on which product would yield the look you are trying to achieve. Have you already quoted a price to your customer? If the product you want to use is pricy, and it may be time consuming as well, quote it anyway explaining that it would give the best overall look to the final design and let the customer tell you that the price may or may not be in their budget. If they come back and have issue with the price, then say the next alternative for the finish would be X and the cost would be Y.

Hi, thanks for your reply. I have just spoken with the client and she says she will go with whatever I feel looks best (thank goodness) as I tried the silver jewel glitter dust on a practice cake and the effect just looked tacky. I think it best I go with just a pearlescent lustre dust to give the sparkly effect and then add some glitter ribbon and edible sparkle stars in stretegic places. Thanks for your input though, much appreciated.

Hi,
I know I am very late replying to this but I posted a tutorial on my blog regarding making a piano cake.