I'm making a guitar cake. I got a template to get the correct shape, It going to be smallish, baked a 9X13 cake and the template fits by cutting the handle off and cutting it from another part of the cake. My plan was to torte and fill the whole 9X13 and then cut out the shape but I'm worried about not having a damn around the filling....Is this a mistake?

Also I'm going to use crusting butter cream and mmf to cover. I've only covered one cake with fondant completely, use it as accents all the time. I had difficulty with it the first time.

My second question is do I crumb coat and then put another layer of icing on then fondant? or do I just do the crumb coat? and do I let it crust before I put on the fondant? Sorry its kinda long.

What are you filling with? If it's just BC, I wouldn't worry too much about the dam. With a 4-layer wedding tier, I'd be more concerned, but a 2-layer guitar (I assume) it doesn't seem to be an issue.

I'll let the experts give you some advice! Good luck!

its a cookies and cream filling but its very thick and stable. I'v never had trouble with it bulging before but i've always used a damn to be safe

when I made my guitar cake or pretty much any cake that I cut to shape I shape first and then fill. But that is just my way of doing it so that I dont cream any of the cut offs so that I can store them and use them for cake balls and other things. As for the crumb coat you dont need to put a second covering before the fondant and I leave mine for approx 15-30 mins before putting the fondant on.