Pink VW Beetle Car Cake

Happy New Year! I hope you enjoyed your Holidays.

I am so excited to say that I have completed my first cake of the year, a VW Beetle Car Cake. This cake was made for a beautiful young lady who looooves pink.

This page may contain affiliate links which mean that if you make a purchase from any links directed from this website I may earn a small commission. I only recommend things that I use and love and classes I have taken. Thank you very much for your ongoing support.

I believe that making a car cake in any shape is every cake decorators dream…

VW Beetle car cakes can be seen everywhere on the internet and therefore, there is a lot of inspiration. Car cakes like character modeling are really hard because if you do not make it the right proportions it looks terrible. You also need lots of patience because they do take time. There are so many tiny details that are necessary. For example, the mirrors, tires, door handle, you get the idea.

Getting the blueprint for the VW Beetle car cake made my life so much easier

I was able to get blueprints online (front, back, top and the side) for the VW Beetle Cabrio 1500. Which made my life so much easier, I did not have to worry about scaling. You can get the blueprint for any car online. I learned this technique from the awesome Mike McCary’s car class on Craftsy. He teaches so many great techniques that can be applied to any car cake.

Once I downloaded the blueprint, I increased the size of the template and cut them out. The serving size of the cake determines how big or how small you make your template. After I was satisfied with the size, I added laminating sheets to preserve my templates. Then, I was ready to work.

Lets talk cake

I baked two 9 x 13 cakes from my delicious chocolate cake and made a half batch of Italian Meringue buttercream. To which I added melted chocolate to make the filling. Yum. It is soooo delicious. I also made a batch of ganache to use as my final coat. I filled the cake and put in the refrigerator to set to prepare for carving.

Carving the VW Beetle car cake shape

Nothing better than carving a cold cake. I cut the cakes to the size of the templates (it does require some piecing together) and filled. Even though the car is a convertible, I chose to keep the top on, hence, I did not have to carve the inside. A win for me.

Once the filling was set for the layers, I carved until I was happy.

I had to use two knives for this one, my large cake knife, and a small paring knife. This process does take some patience and is the most important. When I got to the wheels, I realized I forgot to cut out my wheel well on my board. No problem, I used my Xacto knife, circle cutter and pairing knife to get the right size. Whew…

Next, I had to make the fenders. The VW Beetle has round fenders above the tires… I had made that section by eye and felt like this took forever to do. I carved and ganached but was not satisfied so I kept messing with it. In hindsight, I should have cut that section out of the blueprint and used it as my guide. I tested my circle cutter and it had clearance which made me very happy. It is the little things… It doesn’t take much to make me happy.

I took the extra time to indent the areas such as windshields, headlights, the hood, windows and the fenders. The VW Beetle Car cake is finally coming together.

Covering the Cake and the Cake board with Fondant

Finally, it was time to add Fondant. I was feeling very accomplished at this point and really confident. Therefore, I covered the car in one piece. I took some time to work on the indentations I made, trying to work really quickly. When I was finished, I painted the windows and windshields grey covered loosely and refrigerated the cake. Then began working on the cake board.

The cake board was covered with the excess fondant and I made shapes freehand using the veining tool. I then painted with black food gel, then went over again with edible charcoal grey dust the same one I used for my Groot Cake. I was going for a cobblestone effect and was having so much fun I got carried away. The final product looks interesting, but not cobblestone. You be the judge eh.

The grand finale

It was finally time to add the cake to the board and the wheels. The moment of truth will my wheels fit? I had to push a little, but they fit and I used candy melts to add the cake to the board as well the wheels. Then, after leaving it to dry. I decided last minute to add some shine to the cake. I was happy with the cake, the birthday girl absolutely loved it.