A friend of mine has requested I make a red electric guitar cake for her sons 14th birthday. I am confident I can make it, it will lay flat so not a HUGE deal. I am concerned however about getting a true red for the frosting color. How many darn containers of red coloring do you have to use to get a good candy apple red?? The black for the neck is also a concern.
Also I would love some advice from anyone who has made a guitar on the decorating. Anything you learned you might like to pass along would be great. I know with each cake I have made (mostly for fun) I have realized things that made it easier to do the second time around. Thanks all

I use Americolor and the red and black come out just fine. No need to use entire bottles like with other brands.

My advice is to make sure your cake board is big enough for the guitar. I did one a long time ago before I even knew what I was doing really. It was about 3 feet long and didn't have a board long enough. So I taped 3 cake boards end to end and sure enough, they bowed when I picked up the cake. One of those "duh!" moments!

Good luck!
KimAZ

I have made a guitar cake with the Wilton cake pan. The neck of the guitar was a little dry because it was smaller than the rest of the cake. The hardest part was getting the strings to be straight. As far as the red and black, I usually use an airbrush for the red. You can use the no-taste red, but I think it still has a bad taste. If you put too much red coloring in the icing, it will not taste good. The same thing goes for the black. If you start with chocolate icing, you will not have to put as much coloring in the icing.

I used a clay gun w/ the smallest round disc to make the strings (fondant) then dusted them w/ silver dust. I can't pipe straight worth a darn so that worked well for me. Definitely use a board large enough. I ended up cutting the correct size from foam board. I used 2 boards put together because it ended up rather heavy. I carved my cake... the pic is in my gallery if you need another example.
HTH,
Melanie Mc.

I have made several guitar cakes - and what I have found to work best, is do the body of the guitar in cake, and the neck in foam board (covered in fondant). It looks more realistic than doing it w/ cake. I prop up the neck w/a small dowel, so it's raised. Strings I pipe on a a #2 tip. Make all the knobs and dials out of fondant and paint w/ silver luster dust.

I cover guitar cakes in fondant, you can get a better color and texture - and you won't have red and black mouths! You can also buy premixed red and black fondant (Satin Ice). And yes - make sure you have a large enough cake board!

Hope that helps!

They want buttercream and I will be baking and filling large sheet cakes and then cutting the cake (about 3 feet long) from a template of an actual guitar. I am going to try and get them to choose a different color since I dont want the taste of the red. Plus if I use fondant accents (like the white inlay on the front of the guitar) in fondant will the coloring from the buttercream bleed onto the white fondant overnight while waiting to be delivered early on a saturday morning? Thanks for all the tips.

I did an all buttercream red guitar cake with black fondant accents and used silver floral wire for the strings. but, mine wasn't that long. I used a 12x18 sheet pan and traced a guitar from my kids' guitar hero controller. it's in my pics. good luck

I've done red & black guitars (ditto on Americolor, much better icing colors than Wilton and I like the squeeze bottle better than dipping into paste) with white fondant accents and had no problem with bleeding.

For my strings, I piped them on the cake with white royal icing, let dry and then painted with silver luster dust & everclear.

I did mine all fondant with a gumpaste neck, but mine is standing. I'm not sure if the red buttercream will bleed into the white fondant but I'm thinking its a very good possibility especially if in a humid room... there's one in my photos, maybe help with ideas..
Good Luck! I'd love to see pictures....

Here is a link to one I did a few years ago.....
http://home-and-garden.webshots.com/photo/1349486286026704827UQyiNA"><img src="http://thumb7.webshots.net/t/46/46/8/62/86/349486286UQyiNA_th.jpg" alt="Guitar cake"

My trick to red buttercream is to make a batch using supermarket red liquid color or red airbrush color for the liquid called for in the icing recipe. It takes very little if any extra color to get it the shade you want, and there's no bitter aftertaste.

I ditto the advice to make sure you have a board big enough! Good luck!!!

Not sure when you were doing the cake but I recommend Dixie's precolored icings! They have all the colors even red and black! And they are not as sweet as traditional buttercream another plus and you can order on their website and you don't need to make a minimum purchase or be a business! They are pretty fast to deliver it too! www.dixiesicing.com