This one was made for the birthday of a concert pianist.
It was based on his antique Steinway concert grand piano, which I saw when I delivered it.
Talk about a beautiful piano!
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This cake was over 18″ long and about 6″ tall without the cover open.
Here’s a list of the materials that you’ll need to make the Grand Piano cake. If you’d like to download the entire tutorial (it’s a PDF that you’ll need to print out and it’s 42 pages long!) Click here: Grand Piano Tutorial Download
Materials list
- For a cake to serve 36-40, start with a 12×18” pan and do the concert grand.
- For a cake to serve around 28-30, start with an 11×15” pan and make the smaller piano profile, but cut it slightly longer from keyboard to end, 13” instead of 12”.
- If you want to make a cake piano bench you can use the cake that you cut off of the piano shape to make the bench.
- You can also stack a cake under the body of the piano if you want to have extra cake. The piano won’t be suspended like a real piano, but you can put a piece of cake underneath the piano body and stack the piano body on it using dowels. Build the legs around the block and cover the block in white icing.
- Posterboard to make templates
- Scissors
- Ruler
- Base board for cake (plywood is best for this so that you can screw the legs into it.)
- Legs- 4 pegs or other supports that can be attached to the base board securely. I used spindles from a staircase and cut them to length, then screwed them into the board.
- 90 degree angled bracket to put under the piano to support the base and form the pedal section.
- Boards to form the inner section of the piano form. This will form the box that the cake sits inside, so it needs to be something rigid. You can use plywood or a corrugated plastic board. For the concert grand I used two corrugated plastic boards with the ridges going opposite each other for added strength.
- Screws and a drill. The screws should be wood screws, and I think that I used both 1” and about ¾” lengths. You just need to see what length you need as you’re doing it, so have a variety on hand.
- Materials for the stand-up piano frame (ignore this if you’re going to build it flat on the board without legs.)
- Materials for the body of the cake itself
- Cake, size based on the serving count needed as described before.
- Fondant, gumpaste and/or modelling chocolate to cover the cake, lid and legs. The amount needed will depend on what size you make the cake. It’s better to start with too much than not have enough!
- Board to put the cake on. This will fit on the stand that you build, or sit flat on the board if you’re not making legs.
- Gold or beige-colored fondant for the inside of the cake. Have enough to cover the flat surface of the top of the cake, plus extra to model the bars that sit on top of the strings.
- Board that will be the lid of the piano. Because this is such a large piece, it’s best to make it from a board and cover it with fondant, but you can make it from gumpaste if you like to live dangerously. If you do that, make an extra one in case of breakage, especially if the cake has to travel anywhere. For this cake I used a cardboard. For shorter pianos you could probably make it from gumpaste if you have time to let it dry thoroughly in advance.
- White and black fondant or gumpaste for the keys.
- Skewer and thicker floral wire to prop the lid up.
- Duct tape
- Exacto knife or other sharp knife
- A pizza cutter would be handy but a sharp knife would work if you don’t have one.
- Rolling pin
- Piping bag and icing to do piano strings.
- Gumpaste for the music board
- Shish-kebab skewers
- Ball tool
- #12 tip or another round cutter about that size
- Copper or bronze luster dust and alcohol to make a
paint - Paintbrush to apply luster dust paint
- Grey icing for the strings and tuning pegs.
- Candy melts to use for glue in a piping bag
- Red fondant (only a small amount is needed.)
- Silver luster dust
- Fondant and ribbon to cover the base board.
- Water and a paintbrush
- Small paintbrush for detailing logos, etc
For more 3D cake tutorials, click here.
