Happy Birthday Train

It’s not sensible, but when someone asks me if I can make a cake for them, my first question is not when they need the cake. That would be the practical question, but it’s not what I need to know to make up my mind. 

My first question … well, actually, two questions … who is it for and what do they want the cake to look like.  That’s what makes the difference to whether or not I want to invest the time and effort in making a cake.  If it’s a cake that I’m intrigued to make or it’s for someone I care about or someone who is important to someone I care about, I’ll figure out a way to make the date work.

When a colleague asked me several months in advance if I’d make a cake for his son’s birthday, I knew I was going to say yes.  His son is adorable and I delight in the pictures his proud dad regularly updates on his computer.  The original idea was for something Max and Ruby related. I’ll admit that wouldn’t have been my favourite option for a design choice, but imagining the delight on a two year old face when his favourite characters were on the cake in front of him completely trumped any hesitation I had about the design.  I was all ready to use my piping gel transfer skills, or maybe even try out a frozen buttercream transfer.

When we confirmed the details a month before the birthday, my co-worker asked if there was any way I could do something train themed. His son had recently become a huge fan of trains.

I started to grin as I calmly asked, “Something flat on a cake or something 3D?” The wheels in my head were already turning.

I debated between carving a train or using the Wilton Choo Choo train pan.  When a flyer from the local craft store arrived with a fabulous coupon, I knew which way I was going. 

My first attempt with the train cake pan was, how shall I put this? … an unmitigated disaster. It is a very bad feeling when you look in the oven window and discover that more than a third of your batter is on the tray outside the cake pan.  ACK! 

I wish I’d thought to take a picture.  Looking back, it was pretty funny. In the moment, I was too busy panicking. After I took a moment to breathe, I looked at the other 3D pans I had and read through their instructions to see what I might have missed.  End result, I tied some butcher cord around the pan to help make sure it didn’t leak.  Second try, perfect … and it even came out of the pan well.

We’d also arranged that I would make some additional cupcakes for to take to his daycare, and some for the party as well, because we couldn’t resist the jungle cupcakes holder and picks.  Did I mention the first batch of chocolate cupcakes were too big to fit in the wrappers?  It was clearly a bad day for baking.  LOL!

The train is made from a very solid chocolate cake that I’ve used before in 3D pans so I knew it would stand up well.  The train car is a yummy lemon nutmeg cake which is particularly amazing when you add chocolate icing. 

While you couldn’t see a lot of it in the finished product, I wanted to include a train track under the cake.  Strips of black fondant with some cookies and cream sprinkles for the gravel worked really well.

To finish things off, I’d originally wanted to make a little fondant boy to peak out the engine window.  There wasn’t a solid way to attach him, so I decided that if a little boy couldn’t be driving the train, he’d want to be riding on top.  From the look on the birthday boy’s face, I know I got it just right.

I couldn’t resist taking one more picture once everything was loaded in my car for delivery.  My new car worked great!

Daycare Birthday Fun

  

That was a lot of red food colouring
 to make Elmo the right colour!



A few years ago, I had a lot of fun making birthday cakes and treats for a friend's son.  That little boy is now 6 ... soon to be 7, his birthday is in November ... and he just had some minor surgery today.  It seemed a good reason to add another story to the cake adventures.

 For his second birthday, his mom asked me to make a cake that they could take to his daycare.  I don't use character cake pans very often anymore (making too many stars can make a person a little crazy), but sometimes it's the right choice.  Elmo for a bunch of daycare kids seemed practically perfect.  The cake underneath was my favourite apple spice cake. Since my friend's son is lactose intolerant, I made the icing using vanilla flavoured soy milk.

The next year, the daycare had decided that only Rice Krispie squares were allowed as cakes were apparently too much mess.  Plain Rice Krispie squares seemed like not nearly enough fun to celebrate such a cute little guy's third birthday, so I decided to get a little inventive.  Take some Rice Krispie squares, and some royal icing to act as glue.  Add some brightly coloured fondant to make tires and headlights and a little imagination. I'll let the picture speak for itself... 

I only took pictures so I'd remember how I made them,
hence the fondant mat and icing bag

Since his dad was away serving in the military that year and their only other family lives on another continent, we decided it would be fun to have a big cake to celebrate his birthday with his church family.
  

Did I mention that this was the fall after I took
the 3rd Wilton course and was having a lot of fun
with fondant?

By the time birthday number four came around, the daycare had decided that cupcakes were allowed for birthday treats.  That's the first time I made the cupcake pizza.  I delivered the pizza to their house the night before they were taking it to daycare.  His response when I opened the lid of the pizza box, three simple words:

 

I was so amazed when the local pizza shop
let me have a box for free and didn't think I was
totally crazy when I asked if I could buy one!

"I like that."

The wide eyes of wonder and a few softly spoken words from a normally taciturn child made that pizza one of my favourite decorated cakes ever.

Oh, in case you're wondering what happened to five and six, his dad was transferred to a different base and now they live in another province.  It's a little expensive for daycare treats to figure out how to send them across the country =