Guitar Cake for the Birthday Boy

George had a hard time deciding what he wanted for his birthday cake this year. Chocolate cake has always been his cake of choice, with varying designs. But, he loves cheesecake in many flavors and fondly recalls a wedding reception he went to where there was a cheesecake buffet. Oh delight! So, he thought he wanted that instead. But he also likes guitars and a guitar cake would be fun. Oh, the dilemma. His days of shaped/decorated cakes is most likely nearing an end and so ultimately he decided to go with the guitar cake.

We found some online that looked nice and then he sketched out the colors he wanted it to be. I think it would have been a bit easier to use the shaped cake pan for this as he ended up baking two 10 inch rounds and one loaf pan. That was a lot of baking and it turned out to be a big cake. (We had to use the cover of a large storage bin to put it on.) He chose chocolate cherry this year.

George decorated the cake himself and it did not turn out quite as he envisioned which often happens to me too. The colors weren't exactly the same as his drawing so he put a blue sparkle gel around and spread it to give it a variegated look.

Another problem was the heat of the day. Since the cake was so big it did not fit in the refrigerator to keep the frosting solid. So, the handle is a bit melted and the frosting kind of slide down so that the gumdrop tuning pegs fell. He also had a hard time getting those strings straight. The idea we saw used licorice stings which would have worked well but George didn't want black strings and thought white frosting would look better.

George's 13th Birthday Cake baked and decorated by George himself. Not bad for a 13 year old boy! This is the 3rd cake he has decorated by himself. (Oh, I think Pete may have pipped a bit here too.)

Little did George know that he was also getting a new guitar for his birthday!