Birthday Fun

Today marks four sweet years of having our first child. What a gift! Big boy is growing up so fast - I can hardly believe how much he's grown up in just this last year. So - as customary in our home on birthdays, Big Boy got to choose his birthday cake design......

"mom, I want a train cake - a blue and black one, with LOTS of trains." Makes sense, no?

So, I set out on an expedition to find the perfect train cake - on a budget :D

After a few good Google searches, I found the perfect recipe - and set my mind right on doing it. Then I got a silly notion that maybe I should do a little "step-by-step" tutorial on how to make the perfect train cake for a 4 year old.

WARNING***** many pictures to follow!

So - without further ado, Happy 4th Birthday to my Big Boy! We love you!!

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The Perfect Train Cake

What you'll need:
2 boxes of cake mix (I used Duncan Hines Yellow & Swiss Chocolate mix) & 2 loaf cake pans
2-3 containers of ready made frosting (I used cream cheese, coconut, and chocolate)
4 -5 different types of candy to decorate train (like gummy worms, licorice, reeces,
sour patch kids, oreos, choc covered raisins)
plastic ziplock baggies, or decorating icing tubes
candles
some sort of plate, or cardboard to cover with foil to use as your tray for the cake

Ok..... Here it goes!

Bake your 2 cakes each in a loaf pan - and then cool completely. When cooled, place these in the freezer for 20 -30 minutes
to harden the cake and make it easier to cut and frost.
Take a serrated knife and cut the top off of each cake as shown. I like to keep all the cake scraps and put them in a freezer bag for a different dessert recipe later on.
Next cut the loaf in half, and then in quarters.
For the engine car, cut the two sides (as shown).
Next cut the front so that the engine comes to a point.
Cut a little square notch out as shown reserving the cut out part
with a little frosting used as glue put the cut out part on top as shown to give dimension to the engine car.
Mix your frosting with whatever color choices you want, I did 2 shades of blue and then chocolate
Next, crumb coat the train cars so that our final coat will be nice and smooth.
here's what they look like after the crumb coat
And the engine car...You can definitely see the "crumbs!"
I like to stick the cars in the freezer to allow the frosting to harden to make the final coat easier to put on. While you wait for that to set up, you can fill your frosting decorating bags with the different colored frostings - and then we can assemble our base tray.
I cut the tip off of a ziplock bag to use for the train tracks that you can draw on the tray - this allows us to know where to place the train cars.
Here's what they look like finished. You can also write a saying in the middle with frosting. As you will see later - I didn't like how the words turned out, so I redid that part and did it a little differently. That's the bonus with frosting, it's very forgiving!
Now you can place your train cars on the tracks to get ready to decorate!
The final product! AND 2 very happy boys :D
the finished cake
Big Boy blowing out the candles!
My 2 precious boys
Peanut and Sophie awaiting their piece of cake!