Cheerful Choo Choo Birthday Cakes

A very special birthday cake for a very special little boy. We baked and decorated FIVE of these train-themed birthday cakes, complete with licorice rope train tracks, rock candy landscaping, and cheerful choo choos emerging from tunnels. Decorating five of these was no small feat – but absolutely worth the effort when we saw the end result. We know one little three-year-old was smiling…

These cakes would be perfect for a “Thomas the Tank Engine” birthday party, but we used “The Little Engine That Could” trains instead – just as adorable but a lot less expensive (particularly since we made five of them). To make your own train and tunnel cakes, just use a large round cake for the bottom layer. We used our “Barbie dress” cake pan to make the tunnel, but you could simply build the tunnel out of layers of cake baked in a regular pan. The simply ice your cake using green for grass, blue for a pond and waterfall, grey for your mountain, and black for the opening to the tunnel (a trip to the cake decorating store is a must – professional quality gel colouring makes your icing colours so much more vibrant). Then simply trim the edges of your cake with rock candy, build your train tracks with licorice rope, and finish off with a cheerful-looking train and perhaps a plastic tree or two. Perfect for any train-loving girl or boy (and have you ever met a preschooler who doesn’t love trains?).

These cakes were a labour of love for us, and we were so happy with the result. We hope they bring smiles to your family as well…