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Updated on December 2, 2021 by · This post may contain affiliate links ·

Ukulele Cake Tutorial

Skill level: Intermediate

Learn to make this adorable ukulele cake that defies gravity and looks just like the real thing. In this online course, you will learn step-by-step every part of making this cake, including the wood grain, making a complicated rounded bottom that supports the cake, the strings and fret board, and how to make this cake stand up on its own.

This cake was a ton of fun to make, and everyone at the birthday party loved it. Let's get our tools and materials together and let's get started!

1:04:23 Minutes of Instruction

What You Will Learn

  • How to make a gravity-defying ukulele cake
  • Learn how to create a cake structure with a rounded bottom
  • How to make paint realistic wood grain
  • Learn all the tips and tricks needed to make the strings and instrument details

Ukulele Cake standing upright with girl holding ukulele behind to show how similar they are

Tutorial Chapters

  1. The ukulele structure 0:26
  2. Stacking the cake 7:54
  3. Frosting the cake 10:03
  4. Covering the sides in fondant 12:58
  5. Attaching the neck 19:23
  6. Covering the front and back in fondant 20:35
  7. Shaping the neck 23:02
  8. Attaching the cake to the board 29:30
  9. Painting the ukulele wood 34:06
  10. Coloring the fondant details 38:21
  11. Airbrushing 41:30
  12. Adding details 44:02
  13. Adding frets 48:04
  14. Adding strings 59:47
  15. Final details 1:03:15

More Course Preview

About Liz Marek

Liz Marek is a professional cake artist and recipe developer who has been teaching baking and cake decorating since 2008. She founded Artisan Cake Company in Portland, Oregon in 2009 and now runs Sugar Geek Show, where she publishes kitchen-tested recipes, food science explanations, and step-by-step tutorials.

Liz is best known for sculpted and hyperrealistic cakes. She won Netflix's Is It Cake? Holiday 2 in 2025 with a hyperrealistic Santa cake, and has competed on and won Food Network cake competitions. Cake Masters Magazine named her one of the top 10 cake artists in 2017. She is the author of Artisan Cake Company's Visual Guide to Cake Decorating and a graduate of the Oregon Culinary Institute.

Her focus is on explaining not just how a recipe works but why it works, so bakers can troubleshoot instead of guess. Every recipe on this site is tested before it's published.

Liz teaches full-length cake tutorials, including sculpted and hyperrealistic cakes, at Sugar Geek University.