Guitar Cake–How I did it!

This past weekend was our friends, Gary and Olivia’s wedding.  They asked if I would make some cookies and a cake for the rehearsal dinner and of course I said yes, it would be my honour.  Gary didn’t want anything grooms-y but Olivia had a different idea.  She emailed me without Gary knowing and asked it I would make a guitar cake.  I’ve never done a sculpted cake before; so the challenge was thrown.  I went to Google and searched guitar cakes and most of them were great, however, very few were lifelike or life size.  Then whilst on Facebook one day, I saw a post by Jessicakesblog.com about a blog she did on how she made a stand up electric guitar.  I didn’t follow her directions completely, since I was going acoustic, but it did use a lot of her tips and loved that she went realistic.

This is the first sculpted cake I’ve ever made but to be honest, it was pretty simple in the carving department.  It was all the finicky details and making the fondant cover the cake right that made my heart beat a little faster.

So I started with getting an acoustic guitar template off the internet.  I then used my KopyKake lying on it’s side and projected the template onto the MDF board against the wall.  I played with it a lot to get it to look life size.  Then I just outlined the guitar. 

This is where my hubby stepped in with his mad carpentry skills.  He cut out the guitar body and neck separately.  It couldn’t be one piece since it wouldn’t fit in the fridge, so I made it two pieces.  Then he cut out the thicker board for the base, pieced together the angled piece that connects the neck to the body and then some final pieces to help elevate the guitar so it looks like it’s floating.  He edged everything to make it look polished and then spray painted it all dark brown.

Back in the kitchen, I baked to half sheet cakes and popped them into the freezer.  I covered both the body and neck pieces with aluminum foil.  As per Jessica’s advice, I used two sided take to put it in place. I then took the body board and traced it out on parchment and cut it out a 1/2 inch smaller.  Then I placed it on to the partially frozen cakes and cut them out.

The one thing Jessica emphatically stated was that chocolate ganache was the way to go, so that’s where I went.  Five pounds of it actually ;)  Once all was ganached, into the fridge overnight.  It weighed a ton, ok may 10lbs with the board, cake and ganache.

Next up was to cover in fondant. After procrasti-cleaning the downstairs, I rolled out a huge piece of white fondant.  Then I prayed to the fondant gods and onto the cake it went.  To my absolute amazement, it went on beautifully.  Yay me :)  I put it back into the fridge so it would completely firm up.

I had planned to just airbrush the colour on but instead decided to paint the wood grain onto the top of the guitar body.  I used Americolor chocolate brown and Americolor Yellow with vodka.  I had to play with how much of each before I got the right colour.  I used an extra piece of rolled out fondant and brushed each try until I got it right.  I also used a wide brush which I think really helped give it that wood grain look.

When the top was painted I just used the chocolate brown with vodka and painted the sides.  It didn’t come out dark enough so I pulled out the airbrush and redid the sides with the Americolor airbrush brown.  It was starting to look like a guitar.

I then moved on to the neck of the guitar.  I didn’t want to use cake, so I made Rice Krispie Treats (RKT) and cut them into the shape of the neck.  I covered with chocolate ganached and then covered with dark brown fondant (which I coloured myself).  I also airbrushed it with the dark brown to match the guitar body.  Once finished I thought I should see if it all fit together.  Initially I didn’t think it did, but then I just pushed it a bit and it fit perfectly.

Now for the details.  I used the dark brown fondant and made the large circle and small piece where the strings attach and airbrushed them black.  All of the neck pieces are edible as well.  I used my new clay extruder to make all the note marks and the strings.  I love this new toy so much because I no longer have to hurt my hands to create strings or boarders anymore since it has a crank handle.  Genius. 

The note marks and string holders are grey fondant painted with silver luster dust and vodka, and the strings themselves are ivory coloured fondant.  I used spaghetti to attach the pieces to the neck head.  I also added “bumper stickers” of all the places Gary has lived as well as his love for the Oregan State Beavers.

The last thing added was the small plaque we had engraved with Gary and Olivia’s names and wedding date.  I attached it to the board with fondant so they could pop it off and have it as a keep sake.

So there you go.  That’s how I made it.

This is what it looked like to travel the hour and half away.

And this is the guitar at the rehearsal dinner.

I had a ton of fun making this cake despite the stress of it being my first carved cake.  Everyone loved it and as you can tell by this next picture, it tasted pretty good too.  Even the RKT neck got eaten :)

On to the next cake…actually cookies :)

Thanks for looking!