Guitar Cake with DIY Fondant Guitar Topper

Fancy making a guitar cake with a cute guitar topper?

Here is one such cake idea I created for a birthday. The guitar topper was made in fondant (click here for the step by step tutorial on how to make the guitar topper). The entire cake was decorated in black and white. The decoration on the cake centered around musical notes.

A two tier black and white cake with guitar cake topper and musical notes

Guitar Cake Tutorial

This was not a very difficult cake to decorate. If you read on below as well as my tutorial on the guitar cake topper here, you will see that it is pretty straightforward to decorate. All the musical notes on the cake (except for the 3D one on the cake top) and the cake board were drawn by hand using a black edible marker. The black swirls on the front of the bottom tier were made using fondant. However, I used a paper template as a guide in forming those. So that made it easy to get them all consistent.

Lets look at full details on how to make a guitar cake:

How to Make a Guitar Cake

Main supplies for the guitar cake:

Raw Material

Cake – this was a 2 tier cake made using my butter pound cake recipe. The top tier measured 6 inches in diameter and the bottom tier was a 9 inches round cake. Each tier measured approximately 6 inches high.
Buttercream – I used buttercream to fill the cake layers as well as to crumb coat them.
Fondant – The entire cake was decorated in fondant. I used Satin Ice in white and black.
CMC powder – I used CMC powder in fondant to help my 3D decorations firmer and more stable.
Shortening and fondant glue

Tools

Extruder tool – I used this for the black swirls on the cake as well as all the border work.
Guitar template – This was a hand-drawn template. I used it to cut my guitar topper.
Musical note template – This was also a hand-drawn template. I used it to cut out the black 3D musical note on the cake.
Swirls template – The black swirls on the front of the second cake tier were guided by a hand-drawn template.
Parchment paper
Sugar craft knife
Alphabet cutters – I used 2 different cutters, one for the 3D name and the other for the ‘Happy Birthday’ wordings.
Plaque cutter
Lollipop stick
Styrofoam dummy

How to assemble the fondant guitar cake:

The templates

I started by getting all my templates ready. There were a total of 3 templates. One of the guitar topper, one for the musical note topper, and one for the swirls pattern on the front of the bottom tier.
I did a Google search for the templates designs and then resized and modified them to suit my liking. Once I was satisfied with the sizes, I traced them onto parchment paper. For the guitar and the musical note, I cut them out following their outlines. These were to be used as paper templates to cut out in fondant.

The handmade musical note and guitar cake topper

I have a full tutorial on how I made the guitar topper, so you can check it out there. As for the musical note, I used my paper template to cut it out in black. I added CMC powder to the fondant so that my note would dry hard and firm. I rolled it to a thickness of about 1cm before I cut it out using my paper template as a guide.

Musical note paper template on a piece of black rolled fondant

And then I attached a toothpick to the bottom and let it firm up in a horizontal position.

Fondant musical note with a pick attached

The 3D alphabets

Next where the 3D letters for the birthday person’s name, LENNY. I cut the letters out in the same black fondant that has been added CMC. And I let the letters firm up in a horizontal position until they too were ready to be put onto the cake.

The swirls template

After the letters, I did the swirls pattern. To make thesee, I glued my paper template onto the sides of a 9 inches round cake dummy. The dummy has to be of the same diameter as the cake you intend to put the swirls on. Since mine was a 9 inches round cake, I used a 9 inches round cake dummy.
And then I placed a layer of parchment paper on it. Since the parchment paper is see-through, I did not have to redraw the pattern on the parchment paper.

And then I applied shortening all over the parchment paper especially where the pattern was.

Using a brush to brush the top of a paper template

Piping the swirls

And then I filled my extruder tool with black fondant and fit it with a medium circle disc.

Fondant extruder tool in green, piping out black fondant

To create the swirls, I piped out short strips of black. After that, I arranged them onto my prepared template, using the drawing as a guide to place the strips.

A short strip of black fondant on a paper template

Where there were joints, I used fondant glue to make sure they were well secured in place.

Using a sugarcraft knife to cut fondant strips on a paper template

Using a brush to glue black fondant strips on a paper template

Once the entire swirls pattern was done, I left it to firm up on the dummy.

Black fondant swirl pattern on a paper template

Assembling the guitar cake

And while waiting for all the above to set and firm up, I prepared my cakes.
I leveled and sandwiched them with buttercream before covering them with fondant. And then I stacked them using bubble tea straws and set aside.

The ‘Happy Birthday’ wording

The first deco to go on the guitar cake was the ‘Happy Birthday’ words. I cut the letters in black using my letter cutters. And I attached them to a piece of white rolled fondant. The idea was to put the letters onto a fondant plaque and attach the plaque to the cake.
So, to make sure I had the lettering perfectly centered on my fondant plaque, I cut my alphabets. I then arranged them in order and measured the length with a ruler. Once I had the full length, I was able to determine the midpoints for both words. Next was arranging and attaching them onto the rolled white fondant with shortening such that the midpoints for both letters were consistent.

Happy lettering in black on white fondant

Birthday fondant cut out in black fondant, with a needle tool pointing to letter h

Happy birthday lettering in black on white fondant with a plaque cutter on top

And then, I used my plaque cutter to cut the birthday plaque out.

I applied some shortening to the back of the plaque and carefully attached it to the cake. And then I piped a long strip of black using the same circle disc I used for the swirls patterns. This, I attached it around the plaque with shortening as a border.

I also used the same black strip to add border for the top tier.

The birthday name

Next I added the birthday persons name. By this time, the 3D letters were all nice and firm and so were ready to be put on the cake. Again, to make sure the name is perfectly centred on the cake and in a consistently centred position as the ‘Happy Birthday’ wordings, I measured the name in full to determine its mid point, which was the letter N, and then, starting with that letter, I placed it on the cake, consistent with the mid points of the ‘Happy Birthday’ wordings that are already on the.

And then I added the remaining letters to complete the name. I used glue to make sure the letters stay firmly in place.

Happy birthday and Lenny wording on a cake

Attaching the swirls to the cake

Next to go onto the cake was the swirl pattern. I applied shortening onto the cake where I wanted to place the pattern, and carefully, lifted the piped pieces one by one from the styrofoam dummy, and arranged them onto the cake. Since I used shortening as the glue, it was easy to adjust the strips until I got their position perfect.
I started with the bottom of the pattern and slowly worked my way up until it was complete.

A small fondant swirl in black on a white cake

And this was how the cake looked with the swirls on.

A two tier white cake with black fondant deco and lettering

After that, I added the border for the bottom tier, which was similar to the top tier earlier.

Black fondant strips deco on a white cake

Next were the musical notes. Like I mentioned earlier, these were hand-drawn directly onto the cake with a black edible marker and I did it freehand, making sure the notes were well spaced out. I drew these notes on the top tier and cake board, leaving the bottom tier free of any deco except the black swirls pattern.