Choo-Choo Train Cake

Growing up my mom would always make a creative birthday cake for us. I always looked forward to having a cool "theme" cake and I have decided to carry on that tradition in our family. I am still a novice and learning, but I thought I would pass on some tips from the cakes I have made. Today, I am going to show you the train cake I made for my son's second birthday.

What you need:
1 baked sheet cake
1 baked 9"x13" cake
2 batches frosting (same as I use for frosting sugar cookies)
Food coloring
1 bag coconut
1 pack mini oreos or chocolate cookies
1 pack chocolate wafers
4 pieces of popcorn
1 twisty tie or floral wire
1 giant marshmallow
1 pack chocolate M&Ms
Handful of straight pretzels
1 pack of something gummy
1 pack licorice
1 piece of covered cardboard or a cake board to set cake on

Directions:

Prepare first cake and pour into greased sheet pan. Let cool ten minutes and then flip onto cake board or piece of cardboard covered with aluminum foil or brown packing paper. I placed a piece of wax paper the size of the sheet pan in the middle of the cake board for the cake to rest on.


Prepare second cake (I made a homemade cake for this one because they are less crumbly and easier to frost) and bake in a 9"x13" pan. Let cool and then cut into nine equal rectangles. Cut on of the nine rectangles in half again.


Prepare frosting. I separated my frosting for the sheet cake into a separate bowl and added 1/4 cup cocoa to it for chocolate frosting. Frost the sheet cake. Add green food coloring to the coconut in a mixing bowl to die the coconut green to look like grass. Place coconut on top of the frosted sheet cake. Place chocolate wafers on top of the coconut to look like train tracks.

Mix frosting colors for the train cars. I chose four different colors. I chose to only make my train car four cars long, but the cake will allow you to make your train up to eight cars long. If you want a larger train, you can simple make your cake board longer and not have a sheet cake underneath or make two sheet cakes.

For the engine, place one of the halves of the rectangle you cut in half on top of another rectangle. Frost. Decorate the train with windows. Place a marshmallow on the engine and stick the floral wire or twisty tie in the marshmallow threaded with popcorn to make it look like smoke coming out of the engine. Place M&Ms on the front of the engine.


Decorate each of the train cars as desired. I had a train carrying pretzels to look like lumber. Another car holdling animal crackers to look like animals. My last train held the birthday candles. Be creative. There are lots of fun ways to decorate your train cars.


If any of you have pictures of fun birthday cakes you've made please send them to me at celebratingtodayblog@gmail.com and I'll have a post dedicated to your cakes!