My now 2-year-old LOVED this cake for his 2nd Birthday! He was soooo excited to have his “Choo Choo” cake. In fact, while writing this, He saw the pictures and got all excited again! The morning after we had it, he was eating some cake, and it dawned on him that he was eating his train cake and got all upset “Oh no! Choo Choo!” Yep – well-loved cake!
It was fairly easy to make as well!
First, you’ll need to make 2 cakes. I made one cake in a 13×9 pan and spread another out between 3 loaf pans. Bake according to box instructions. I then made a triple batch of my buttercream frosting. You will also need about a half batch of Rice Krispie treats. Honestly, I did not measure. I simply put a bowl full of marshmallows in the microwave, melted them and then added some Rice Krispies. Easy!
To assemble the train: First off, I probably would have used a larger board, but this was the largest cutting board we have, and I didn’t want to come up with anything else!
For the engine, I took one of the loaf pan cakes as the base. I then took the Rice Krispie treat mixture and dumped it out onto a greased piece of wax paper. I then took another piece of wax paper and used it to shape the Rice Krispies into my desired half circle shape. Once I got it to the shape I wanted, I put it on the loaf cake, with just a little bit of butter cream in between the layers to act as a glue.
Then I cut another one of the loaf pans into thirds, stacking them for the back of the engine, with a little frosting between the layers to stick together!
The coal car, is the 3rd loaf pan cut in half, with frosting between the layers.
I then cut the 13×9 pan in half lengthwise, for the passenger car. I stacked the 2 layers with buttercream frosting in the middle.
Then I simply frosted the outside of all my cakes. Add food coloring to the frosting, to get your desired color.
We simply used whatever cookies and candy we had laying around to finish off the cake. Any round cookie (think Oreos! We used some Shortbread chocolate cookies we had open) will work for the wheels. We used M&M’s for the coal, and some Chocolate Chips for the border. Any small candy will work for coal. The colors are fun, or you can be more authentic and use a candy that is all the same color (like Chocolate!) We used a Chocolate bar that we cut up for the windows. The lights were butterscotch candies. Used a big marshmallow for the smoke stack. We used some writing gel to do some detail, and to add the “2” to the front of the train. Just use what you have around the house!
It is a fun cake that is fairly easy to make and my son absolutely LOVED it – HUGE hit around here!!
