I was recently asked to make a grand piano cake for a musician/choirmaster. This cake brought together several of my cakey loves: figure modelling; carving simple novelty shapes; attention to detail to the original items; and adding in some tiny personal touches so that you see more and more on closer inspection.

The piano was carved from a 10 × 8 inch lemon madeira cake with alternate layers of lemon curd and lemon buttercream filling. I found a template of the dimensions of a real grand piano on the internet and used this to make myself a paper template to cut my piano from the rectangular cake.

The woodgrain effect was achieved by rolling various strands of sugarpaste in different shades of brown together until a marbled effect was achieved. It was finished with a light spray of edible glaze.

I use more photos of real grand pianos on the internet to check the interior workings of a piano to emboss a similar effect, and to check the number of keys – I pride myself on attention to detail, and it was a good job as several musicians attended the party and apparently the keys were counted to check! A Jem Strip Cutter No.1 (3mm) was used to cut the black keys; placing them in the right position on the keyboard was the fiddliest part of the whole cake.

Edible images were used to represent various pieces of music that the recipient had been involved in at concert level – including Handel’s Messiah and Miss Saigon. The inclusion of Michael Nyman’s music from The Piano was a cheeky nod to a piece of music that he always refuses to play in real life. He’s also competed in triathlons, so a Triathlete magazine image was positioned in the background of the cake.

Loved making this cake, although it did have its challenges – not the cake itself, but a really ill-timed power cut the night I was covering the cake and embossing the interior section – had to resort to continuing with an industrial strength head torch!! I shall spare you the photo my husband took of me in this get-up – head torch and hairnet is a strong look!