Choo-Choo Someone's Two!

My latest cake adventure was a lot of fun!  This was my first time to have directions on every aspect of creating the cake, which relieved some pressure in some ways.

In honor of my little girl's 2nd birthday, the girl who stands at the window and "commands" for trains to come by, who waves "bye-bye" and says "thank you" to them for coming, and when visiting other people's houses goes to their windows and looks for trains, this cake seemed appropriate:

from Wilton's Celebrate! with Fondant magazine

When I showed her the picture and asked if she would like this cake, she excitedly replied, "Oh-TAY!", which is how she says "yes" when she's extremely happy.

I chose a simple pound cake recipe and followed the directions given by baking 2 loaves and one cupcake.

Loaves "dirty iced" with vanilla buttercream frosting

Of course, I had to change the colors for my girl, who without being taught to do so, gravitates to pink.

The body of the train

I forgot to take more pictures in between because I was kind of in a hurry, but here's the almost completed project.  The wheels are made from fondant as well.  I had to make them several days ahead for them to be firm enough and not "wilt".  As a precaution I stuffed paper under them since I put them on the night before.  They turned out great!

Almost done!

I don't have letter cutouts, so I bought some "food writing" markers.  They were easy to use, and I think will last a while.


The "steam" is marshmallows slightly melted so that they would stick together (thanks to my mil for the great idea!)  I did vary from the directions here because I didn't want to make more fondant to roll into balls for the steam.

Finished product!

My daughter LOVED her cake!  She ate it with concentrated determination.

The happy birthday girl

This cake was lots of fun to make, and by changing the colors, could be used on different occasions for any train theme party.  This cake serves 10, but if you have a larger event, more cars could be added to make sure everyone can "get on board"!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

How The Cakes Began

I've always enjoyed baking.  Chocolate Chip Cookies were sort of a specialty of mine.  Then I got into cakes a little bit.

Having children opened up a whole new world of cakes to me.  For my son's fourth birthday he requested a McQueen cake.  I really didn't think I could do it, and I know from google searches that there are many people who have done better.  However, on his birthday, when my little man looked at his cake and excitedly shouted, "McQueen!", I was completely satisfied.

So, here for all to see is, is my first decorative cake and the process that made it happen.

I found this picture on the internet to use for direction.

I froze a 9x13 chocolate cake then tried to cut it following the picture above.

The leftover pieces I couldn't bring myself to waste, so I ended up piecing them together and making a separate small cake covered in chocolate icing, but I only have this picture of the pieces.

We were in Russia, so I didn't have any of the wonderful Wilton tools or anything, and this was my first decorative cake, so it was a bit messy.  I also had to call in a favor for extra red food coloring from my dear friend, and thankfully she had some, so McQueen was red after all!

I couldn't figure out how to do the lightning bolt at the time, but I think I could figure that out now.

So, this is the cake that gave me a taste for decorating (no pun intended).  Do you have an idea that you'd like to taste?  Send me an email, and let's get something started!