My son's 18th Bday is coming up. I am a novice baker, I like to think I do have some talent.

My plan is to make a 10" round, chocolate cake with Chocolate BC. The top will have a FBCT of his school letter (he is a senior). I'd like to decorate the sides of the cake, and son is active in marching band. I saw sometime back a picture where a musical staff was piped on the side. How would you go about getting the lines on the side of the cake straight?

The tines of a fork would be too small, any other ideas/suggestions? Do you think this is overly ambitious? I could do small FBCT's of his instrument as an alternative.

Any ideas/feedback?

Thanks

You could put the cake on a turntable and pipe the lines on free-hand, keeping your hand still and just spinning the cake...

Or buy a cheap comb and break off some of the teeth and leave just a few spaced where you want the lines to go and use that as your guide.

HTH

I did music on a cake. I cut a strip of parchment the width I wanted, then put it around the cake. I took a tool and made a line in the fondant at both edges (you need a turntable for this). Took the paper away, and made a line in the middle. made two more lines. Wrote in the music and the signs and clefs.

Link:

http://www.ultimatecake.se/bilder/07jul07a.jpg

We're a musical family and I've had this delima, too. How about holding a long piece of thread tight in both hands and "scoring" a line on the cake, then move it down and just kinda eyeball it for the spaces inbetwen the lines....does that make sense??? At least it would give you a straight line to go by! Or what about the chalk holders that teachers use to make a musical staff that holds 5 pieces of chalk all at once? That might be too wide, though. What about just making a wavy staff instead of straight lines? I don't know...just some silly ideas!!!

Thanks for the ideas and feed back. I like your idea Mezzaluna, your cake is beautiful, that may have been the cake that put the thought in my mind. It is gorgeous.

Laura I remember those chalk drawing things and was trying to figure what I could use to accomplish the same thing

I think I will try the parchment idea, that seems do-able.

Thanks for your help!

Take a wooden dowel and glue 5 wooden toothpicks to it. Once it sets up you have a "comb" ofsorts that you can use to mark the cake. Spint the cake getly while tracing the lines. You can make them completely straight and horitzonal, or you can "wave" them around the cake - the important part is keeping the lines consistantly spaced from one another.

if you dont want to go through the trouble of doing the lines, you could just put music notes on the side and it would look really cute

if you dont want to go through the trouble of doing the lines, you could just put music notes on the side and it would look really cute

you can buy a tip that has 5 holes for piping music. Tip #134

Thanks for all the replies. I think with all the suggestions I'll be able to make it work.

Thanks for the heads up on the tip off to check that out!