My husband is a muso and huge Paul McCartney fan, so when I had the opportunity to have a private guitar cake class with Verusca Walker and two other friends, there was no doubt which of his instruments I was going to recreate in cake.

The cake is an 11" chocolate mud with dark chocolate ganache. It has a gorgeous clean finish, thanks to Pettinice fondant by NZ Bakels, which I also used for all the guitar details. I used a 1:10 ratio of their chocolate fondant and white fondant for the base colour. Verusca helped me airbrush the sunburst affect with Americolour Cafe Brown, and this shading effect really brought it to life. The Hofner Guitars logo, mother of pearl pickguard, ticket and button are all printed on wafer paper and mounted on hardened Pettinice mixed with tylose. I covered the dark wooden neck with modelling Chocit, as well as the cream trim around the bass body. The armature holding the strings on the base of the Hofner was created by carefully snapping (and not separating) a kebab stick and hot gluing trimmed wooden popsicle sticks to it. I painted all the wood and silver with the 100% edible silver Rainbow Dust Colours Ltd edible silk range, which you can purchase from Kiwicakes. The strings themselves are elastic silver thread which is brilliant, as it keeps taut and easy to handle.

I enjoyed making this cake, and glad I was patient enough with the details, which were what took the longest. It's not perfectly accurate, but I tried hard using my husband's '63 right handed Hofner bass as a guide - so I can't wait to take what I learned with this one recreate the next one, which my husband has requested for his birthday!

Want to know more about the bass? According to Wiki, in the 1950s and 1960s, Höfner instruments were distributed by Selmer of London. They were considerably more accessible to budding musicians in the UK, giving Höfners a place in history as the "starter" instruments of several well known 1960s musicians. Much of Höfner's popularity is attributed to Paul McCartney's use of the Höfner 500/1 bass throughout his career. This violin-shaped model is commonly referred to as The Beatles bass." My husband told me Paul removed the pickguard (The mother of pearl plate that stops the guitar pick from scratching the finish) sometime in 1966.