Sam's Third Birthday Train Cake

Birthday Boy

When this little man (and my super-mum sister) requests “a train cake with tractor candles” for his birthday, how could I refuse?  Last year’s train cake was merely a training exercis as this year the Neph’ was having a party for 20  of his friends and the cake was to be party bag fodder. If you were following me on Twitter on the day I made it, you’ll know that I dithered for ages before I finally manned up and got on with it.

I used a double batch of  the BBC Good Food easy vanilla celebration cake recipe. It’s dense enough to carve and whilst I was worried that it would be too dry, the yoghurt in the mixture kept it moist and had the added benefit of stopping it from being too sickly sweet. Neph’ wolfed down two slices of spare cake the day before his birthday so I think he was a fan!

Things that are useful to know if you are going to have a go:

• It needs 10 eggs. Yep, 10.
• After trying to colour all my own icing last year, I knew that it was a recipe for muddy colours and cracked icing so I bought packs of ready coloured icing. I can’t tell you how much easier that made it.
• Mini chocolate party rings are the perfect size for wheels.
• I froze the cake before carving, then did a crumb layer of buttercream and popped it back in the freezer, taking each carriage out one by one as I iced it.
• If you can, take a very thin slice off the top of the the cake before sectioning it up. The browned top of the cake is much more likely to crumble away when you ice it.

Sadly, the tractor candle arrived a day too late…maybe that can go on next year’s cake.

Happy Birthday Neph’!

Train cake (but no tractor candles)

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