Jacob's Birthday Cake

Some of you may have seen this on facebook, but I am just so proud. Last year I made an elephant cake with a tin I had purchased...it was a NIGHTMARE. It looked like Jacob did it, not an adult. It was horrifying....So when I purchased teh 3-D trains pans, I thought, "Have you gone utterly mad, woman??" I didn't answer, so I think that means no...not sure.

Anywho...I was going to get the regular, flat train pan, but I though, no way, how cool would a 3-D one be?? So I get the pans, read the instructions first (SO glad I did)...it said to use pound cake batter. Pound cake? I didn't have pound cake....but for my little birthday boy, Betty Crocker here found a poundcake recipe, and had to make a double batch. EIGHT eggs. Good thing we have chickens!!!

So...I load the batter into a greased AND floured pan (I haven't done that since the invention of PAM, by the way), and put the top pan on and into the oven he goes. Tick tock tick tock. After I took it out and checked it, I saw that it ACTUALLY worked! It looked like a train. By the time I had made the batter, baked it and let it completely cool, we were already talking 6 hours.

Then I decide I want to ice it using little stars in all the colors of Thomas the train...Jacob's addiction of choice right now. Well, that didn't last long with my hands the way they are, so the starts kinda started running together...and then, OR COURSE...we ran out of black. So Doug had to run to the store in the 3rd hour of my decorating marathon and get one more tube of black.

Today we decided we needed a base to go under it, so while Jacob is napping I made a regular 9x13 cake, which we will flip upside down on a cookie sheet, frost and paint railroad tracks on, before loading a doweled Thomas onto it. Doug is going to put dowels or something in the cake so it stands up. It's very heavy.

So here's the Thomas part...it only took 5 hours of actual MAKING it and 4 to cool in between. The things we do for our children. But the look on his face was SO worth it.

Here's another one if I can get it to upload without taking another 20 minutes!!! Oh, how I LOVE dial-up!