Train Cake

Ok, so a lot of you liked the train cake, and well, there are some things you should know about the train cake.

You will need:
Something to put the train on (I used Foam Board)
A cake mix
Vanilla Frosting x2
Chocolate Frosting
Candy
Food coloring

First, I got the idea from Kraft... Train Cake

Second, I just made a cake in a 9x13 pan and cut it into squares. The Kraft instructions say to use frozen Sara Lee pound cakes. I just couldn't make my sons birthday cake out of pound cakes. But it would have been MUCH easier to frost.

Third, I made the tracks out of Kit Kats and choc frosting on a foam board (I don't have a big tray). I don't have any fancy decorating tools, I just spoon some frosting into a plastic bag and nip the tiniest bit off the corner of the bag. Ok, the hardest part was frosting a cut up cake. At first the frosting was not spreading at all! It was just collecting crumbs and rolling up in balls and making the cake disintegrate! Aaaak. I almost gave up. Then I had the idea to melt some of the frosting in the microwave and pour it onto the crumb sides of the cake and over the top, everywhere but the bottom. Then I let that dry on a drying rack sitting in a cookie sheet pan. After that frosting it was no problem. By the way the first layer of frosting is called a crumb layer. All the pros do it! (I'm such a pro). I added food coloring to the vanilla and frosted the cakes in different colors and placed them on the Kit Kat train tracks.

Last, the fun part, decorating! Just walk down the cookie and candy aisle and imagine the possibilities! You know, Teddy Grahams for little people on your train, Licorice for the tracks, Fruit roll ups for the windows.... the possibilities are endless. I also used more plastic bags with the corners cut off to add detail frosting.

I think that's everything. The only hard part was figuring out how to get the cake frosted, once I figured that out, it was so much fun. If you use pound cakes, you won't have to worry about the frosting getting all messed up. Oh, I almost forgot... Some women made the cakes in multiply bread pans so they were about the size of pound cakes and didn't have crumbly sides, just another idea.