Wilton's Guitar Cake Pan Rocks!
My son Wyatt is obsessed with guitars. He turns everything from rakes to pizza peels into instant guitars and can rock a mean Row Row Row the Boat. For his second birthday last week, I decided to rock out along with him and make him a guitar-shaped birthday cake. Last year's giant cupcake birthday cake was hard to beat, but I was pretty thrilled with how well my guitar cake turned out. I used Wilton's guitar pan and followed the terrific decorating directions (PDF) that came with it.
Now, I've used decorating tips before, and have taken a few short decorating classes, but I've never taken a thorough hands-on decorating class (though I'd like to!). I had originally planned just to frost the cake using a palette knife to create the look, but nothing fancy. But in the back of my head, I knew I really needed to do it the Wilton way, to make it look good. That's where those directions came in handy. They were so thorough and clear! They tell you step-by-step what to do, how much frosting you'll need for each part, and they give you clear technique instruction on how to use each decorating tip to the desired effect. Really, the mini class you get from following the directions is worth the price of the pan itself!
I just used store-bought frostings, since my kitchen is currently being remodeled and I couldn't make them myself. I chose a dark chocolate frosting for the sides, milk chocolate for the top, and used black gel for the black areas, and white icing for the strings. It all did beautifully in the piping bags! I was worried it would be too thick, but that wasn't a problem at all. And, in fact, it was a warm day, and I was impressed at how smooth it went on, and without ever breaking, as can happen with homemade buttercream. I will say that the star technique is laborious and my hand hurt for an hour afterward. But it was worth it, and I would gladly do it all over again for my birthday boy.
Take a look at the results:
Oh, and it tasted good too!
--KitchenMaus
Dayton on June 18, 2009 at 11:15 PM
Wow, you did a FANTASTIC job! :)
joyjeen on July 01, 2009 at 11:25 PM
wow ....like it