I thought she was going to ruin it. She just laughed at me and said that particular cake was decorated a couple of years before and she had handled it roughly at first just to see how much abuse it would take. I thought you might like to know some of the things that judges at cake shows look for. At first glance does the sugar piece make you want to look longer and really check it out. Is it outstandingly beautiful, clever or cute.
Some techniques are harder to do than others.
If you are a beginner and you do a nice even star fill in design, that is acceptable. If you are in the master category and do a nice neat star fill in design - it will probably rate low as far as difficulty of technique. How well you executed the techniques used in your cake or sugar design. Sometimes a very simple - extremely well done cake is the outstanding design at a show. If it only has three techniques used that may influence how high it rates - because it is more difficult to do 6 techniques extremely well over 3 techniques.