Hi folks! I am totally new to this except for making a few boxed cakes. I am planning on making two cakes for my twin girls' 5th birthday party, probably one choc and one white. We are using the guitar pan from Wilton. I see so many recipes, where would be a good place to start? I would also like to make frosting. I am going to use fondant accents, I don't like the taste enough to cover the whole cake. Please help!! Any suggestions would be appreciated!

Welcome to Cake Central. There are many great chocolate cake recipes, but White cake is a bit hard to find the right scratch recipe. Yellow cake is more likely to provide a good scratch result.

People have had good results with the chocolate cake recipe on the Hershey's cocoa can.

As for non chocolate, there is a thread on a favorite vanilla cake. That would be a good place to look.

Hi and Welcome to CC, brandi412.

Decoding CC acronyms:

http://forum.cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopict-2926-.html

EVERYTHING you ever wanted to know about making your 1st (tiered) cake:

http://forum.cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopicp-5958955-.html

Links to Wilton's updated cake making & decorating help:

http://www.wilton.com/cake/cakeprep/baking/times/index.cfm

http://www.wilton.com/wedding/makecake/index.cfm

Illustrated guide to cutting neat slices of cake by indydebi:
(So much easier than the Wilton method.)

http://cateritsimple.com/_wsn/page10.html

Look forward to seeing pics of your cake!

HTH