The Easiest Way to Make a Violin Cake {from 2 round cakes!}

This year for her birthday, my daughter requested a violin cake. She plays the violin, and her teacher has been amazing in helping her to advance and to fall in love with playing. I’m so thankful!

So when she said “Mom, do you think you can make a violin cake?” I said “of course” before I looked into it haha 😆. 

I assumed I could just google “how to make a violin cake” and find a simple tutorial, so imagine my surprise (and touch of fear?! 😂) when I couldn’t find anything except super-detailed fancy cakes online! Ughhhh.

Not wanting to disappoint my daughter (who thinks mom can do anything 🤪), I determined to figure out how to find the easiest way to make a violin cake.

First things first, I texted my sister who is the “official” cake decorator in our family (even though we all dabble). She helped me brainstorm, and after realizing that I’d need to make a template as well, I figured I NEEDED to get this online for anyone else looking up how to make a violin cake!

So here we go — I’m going to show you how easy it is to use 2 round cakes (plus a little bit in a loaf pan) PLUS my printable template (download link is below) to easily make a violin cake!

I’m so excited to share this with you!

By the way, if you are super-talented in the cake-making department, this violin cake from Jessica is absolutely GORGEOUS. I definitely needed something more simple, but boy is that a detailed one! Loved seeing her cake!

Now, for the rest of us that aren’t cake artists…. 😆

HOW TO MAKE A VIOLIN CAKE

The first thing you need to do is to bake 2 round cakes (9″), plus the leftover batter in a loaf pan to make the neck of the violin.

I use Duncan Hines cake mixes – one cake mix makes about 3 1/2 cups of batter, and you’ll need 2 cake mixes for this cake. 

Put about 3 cups of batter into each greased & floured 9″ circle cake pan, then put the leftover batter into a greased & floured loaf pan (this will just be a thin layer, but it will work for the neck).

Bake according to the directions on the cake mix (don’t forget about that little bit in the loaf pan – it won’t take as long!) and let the cakes cool.

Next you’ll need to overlap the cakes a little bit – use this template to cut out part of one of the circles, then piece them together as pictured.

Next, click HERE to get the printable violin template – piece these 2 pages together and place on the cake as pictured below.

Then just take a sharp knife and cut out the edges that need it.

 

Next, cut a “violin neck” out of the loaf pan cake (I stacked 2 same-size strips to make it the same height as my circles).  

From here, you can decorate it however you want – you’ve got your violin shaped cake!

You can keep it really simple, one solid color with a star-tip, and it will totally look like a violin.

Or you can get as detailed as you feel creative and make it look as life-like as possible!

My daughter and I decorated her violin birthday cake together since she’s on summer break and loves all things art. This was basically an edible art project for her, so I let her have fun and try her hand at some things. 😃

It was, however, pretty simple to decorate, so I will tell you what we did and maybe you’ll want to try this method as well.

HERE’S OUR VIOLIN BIRTHDAY CAKE FINISHED

We “painted” ours with food coloring (I’ll explain this below), so we had to have a crusting buttercream (one that gets crusty after a couple of hours).

(Frosting that you buy in a can in the store does not crust.)

I used this recipe from Chelsey.

Then I just frosted my entire cake and put it into the fridge to crust.

After the frosting was crusted, I actually used my {clean} hands to very gently smooth out my not-so-smooth frosted cake.

I especially focused on the detailed edges that make this look like a violin.

Here you can see that it’s quite a bit smoother. Even though still not perfect, it was fine for painting with food coloring.

While I was doing the frosting, my daughter had some black fondant that she was forming the violin pieces out of….we also rolled out a thin sheet to cover the violin neck and cut another piece to extend it on top of the frosted cake.

 

HOW TO PAINT WITH FOOD COLORING

Have you ever wondered how to paint with food coloring?

My daughter did this for her violin cake, and she said it was really easy. You’ll want your cake to be cold before you start this!

To make the “paint,” mix 1 tablespoon of vanilla extract with a glob of Wilton icing color (ok, I know a “glob” isn’t a real measurement, but we literally just stuck a toothpick into the color and got a “glob” and it worked).

I’m sure you can also use liquid food coloring or whatever type you have on hand – this part you can just play around with to get the color you want and it will be fine when it dries.

My daughter did 3 coats of “paint” to make the color match her violin – first GOLDEN YELLOW, then COPPER, then BROWN.

(Honestly, she could have skipped the yellow, so if you are trying to get this final color, just go with copper and brown!)

You do need to do one color at a time, letting it dry between coats, or it will all just mix together.

 

If you haven’t tried painting with food coloring, don’t be afraid – there was no special method for this, just streaking it on there with a paint brush!

Look how nice the painting method turned out!

FINAL TOUCHES 

Here’s how we finished up our violin cake:

Half a cracker for the violin bridge….

….and the 2 black curvy lines (F-holes they’re called).

Brown frosting for the scroll (do one horizontal stripe first, then 2 “rainbows” from back to front, finishing up with 1 big center “rainbow”)…

Chin rest and the tailpiece that we made from black fondant….

And finally, the strings. We would have used licorice strands but we don’t have them where we live, so my daughter used a tube of white gel frosting. She said it was hard to frost them straight, so if you can use licorice, I recommend that first. 😊 

Make sure you’ve got a birthday banner before the party! 🥳 

We’ve got lots of printable banners on our blog – click HERE to check them out!