Real Life Size Fondant Guitar Cake

Somebody requested me to make a guitar cake as a present  for the birthday of her husband, a Gibson Electric guitar. That was the first time I would be making a guitar cake. At first I was hesitant to take the request but eventually gave in to take the challenge.

I jump started with my guitar cake project by making a pattern. Yes, I did make a guitar pattern which I drew on a large parchment paper.  This was necessary so I would be sure my cake would take the shape I intended it to be. The size and shape resemble a real electric guitar. The length was about 40 inches. 

Three days before the cake was needed, I already formed the gumpaste volume knobs, tuning pegs, the neck, headstock, and the Gibson logo. The reason I made these in advance was because these things had to be dried so it could retain its shape when put on the cake. At that time, I did not have tylose so I have to give it more time to dry out. Tylose is being added to fondant dough  to convert fondant into a gumpaste, hence it would be easier to form different shapes as necessary.

For the parts which I intended to look like metal, I painted them with silver Americolor . This one is for airbrush but since I did not have a baker's airbrush, I applied it to the fondant just like a paint.

Now, time to think about the cake board. Since it was not possible for me to buy a cake board large enough to accommodate a real life size guitar cake, I used a 1/2 inch thick styrofoam reinforced by a plywood underneath in order to support the weight of the cake. I just covered the board afterwards. Foam board could work as well, but still , a plywood reinforcement is also needed, otherwise, the cake board will break in half  when carried due to the length of the cake.  

The rest of the job was done on the day before this cake was needed. I allotted  whole day for this cake project alone. Since my oven is not large enough for this cake, I baked 4 batches of 8x12inch vanilla chiffon, with a thickness of about 2 inches each, positioned them side by side. I applied buttercream in between pieces to glue them up together.

I placed the pattern on top then started to cut and carve the cake according to the pattern I made. I used the remaining chiffon to form the guitar neck and head. I sliced across the top of the entire thing  in order to make the surface of the  4 cakes all levelled and for them to appear just like 1 piece of cake once covered with fondant.  

 After forming the guitar shaped chiffon, I covered the whole thing with buttercream. Then started to cover the guitar cake body with fondant, trimmed the excess and smoothed carefully. I took extra caution not to tear the fondant or else I have to redo everything. Smoothening on the curves was a little tricky specially on the narrow curve near the guitar neck. After covering the body, I then worked on to cover  the guitar neck and head with fondant as well.

Prior covering the cake with fondant, I tried to color my white fondant dough deep black. 

But I only had less than a small bottle of  Chefmaster black gel color available when I started. I thought I had enough. But after using up almost all the content  of the small bottle of  Chefmaster black gel,  the  result was just a gray fondant.  The black color gel I had was not enough for the volume of the fondant I made. After long hours of kneading, it then finally came to me to just paint the surface black to save kneading time and food color as well.

So I decided to proceed  to cover the entire  guitar cake with the gray fondant I came up with and then just painted it black using the remaining Chefmaster black gel I had.I got a nice shiny deep black color which I wanted it to be. But since the food color used  is a gel, you won't expect the color to dry immediately.

I then placed a pre-painted wood-stained color  fondant on the guitar neck, which I also did in advance. 

 I started to attach the volume knobs, the tuning pegs, the Gibson logo, and all the other details. For the string, I piped vanilla buttercream along the guitar neck length. I was able to pipe only 4 strings instead of 6. I left it that way since I was afraid to redo and ruin the already piped buttercream for the string.

 

The difficult part of piping the string was to be able to keep the piped buttercream as straight as possible so as to imitate tightly  tensioned strings. As you may notice, my strings were not perfectly straight.

At last I was done with the final touch which was the  string made of buttercream.
 
I boxed up the cake, ready for the next day delivery. It was a long day but worth it.

Happy baking!!!

My Minion Cake

Just last week, I have received another order of fondant cake. The customer wanted to have a minion cake for his son. Since the Despicable Me movie has came out, there are lots of people being fond of the cute little minions of the movie. This has been one of the characters  that many customers wish to have for their kid's party. But guess what, this cake is made not for a kid, but an adult who is so fond as well on minions.

The minion cake I created was made of 4 layers of vanilla and mocha chiffon, stacked alternately in order to come up with an 8-inch  high cake. The icing in between each layer was made of vanilla and mocha as well.  For the layer  just underneath the fondant, I used vanilla buttercream also.

Creating this minion cake was fun. But I was a little worried if this cake would be able to stand up firmly during transport since the diameter of the cake is smaller compared to the height. The diameter is 6 inches by the way.

At first, I attempted to make use of a round  styro as a cake drum and place a dowel at the center all the the way to the styro just to be sure cake won't fall off. But I have changed my mind. I just used an ordinary cake board since if I'll be using a styro, I will have another problem of how to cover the styro top neatly and not having the creases that will be formed on the rounded edge of the styro.

To counteract the possibility of cake tipping due to its height to diameter ratio, I made sure I put buttercream on the cake board just before I placed the first layer of chiffon.The hat of the minion, as you noticed is slightly slanted. I have inserted about 4inches of dowel in order to hold the hat in place and at the same time, hold every chiffon layer together in place.

Another challenge I encountered was during the carving of the head to round the edges, some of the parts crumbs off. I knew , I had to refrigerate the cake first before I carved it to prevent crumbing off,  but I didn't. I then had to correct the roughness before I cover it with fondant. I filled and smoothen the damaged edges with buttercream frosting.

As with the covering of the fondant to the cake, I had no problem at all, I was able to cover the entire cake with yellow rolled fondant easily. After that,  I cut  blue fondant for the jumpsuit. I added a stitch effect on the edges using a fondant quilting tool to make it look more like  real clothes. I then worked on the eyes and glases, the  lips and the tongue. The feet and legs are made  of pure fondant, no chiffon underneath. I applied a generous amount of shortening while kneading the  black fondant for the feet to give it a shiny effect. By the way, I put a dowel all the way thru the legs to be able to attach it to the body and to hold the black feet in place as well.

 So there it is, my minion cake..I was able to deliver it to the customer safely.

Having to see the happy face of the receiver upon seeing this cake, makes all the hardwork worth it. I hope you liked it too...

For my other cake creations, please visit my facebook page as well: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Katz-Sweet-Treats/280058665463556