I love making theme cakes. My friend 'S' had suggested that I make her son's 4th b'day cake almost a year before and it must be mentioned that she had never tasted any of my cakes when she gave me the opportunity! Just few glances at the cakes on my blog and that was enough for her.... :-)
Initially there was a slight confusion whether to keep a 'Cars' themed party or 'Thomas the Train' themed one, but Sanav is a huge fan of Thomas the Train and everytime we asked him for his choice he came back to his favorite train...so finally that's what the theme was decided to be.
Sanav loves Chocolate Cake with Chocolate buttercream, so the cake flavor was set.
As the decorations were left to me I started thinking of suitable color combos...I basically wanted a spring-summery look, with the trains running over grassy lands with bright blue skies and hills and trees etc. And ofcourse a tunnel is a very cute and important addition for train themed cakes - all trains will pass through atleast one tunnel wherever they go right :-)
I baked the chocolate cakes and frosted them with homemade chocolate buttercream, then made my own marshmallow fondant and used Grass Green gel color for the bottom tier fondant and Royal blue gel color for the top tier fondant. The cakes were 10"x4" and 8"x4" each.
Some of the details on the cake included :
The pretty balloons in a cute little basket to symbolize the birthday celebrations....trust me, the kids were just behind me to give them a slice with these balloons and finally I had to give each individual balloon to individual kids so that they don't fight...Lol!
The black tunnel with a red brick wall, the number 4 symbolizing the b'day boys age. The train tracks interlocking from both ends to merge into one track that goes into the tunnel
Railway crossing sign boards on both sides of the tunnel. I also included a tunnel with a stone wall that was shut-down on bottom tier.
Then there were bushes, trees with red fruit, small mountains and some black birds....
And our Thomas Train on top watching his friends speed away and the clouds and the handsome Sun smiling on him. I wrote Happy Birthday and Sanav's name on the clouds.
Thomas and his train friends are toys (I'm not good at modeling figurines), rest everything on the cake is edible. And this was the first time I painted some of the cut outs with gel colors for a more vibrant look.
May I humbly say, the cake was a super-hit. Everyone loved the cake and it was totally worth the sleepless nights I had to finish this cake despite not keeping too well that week.
Here's the happy and smiley b'day boy totally enjoying his cake cutting!!
And soon I was busy with cake slicing and serving...hehe! Actually I was surrounded by kids waiting for a slice with a tree or balloon or tunnel or train track ;-)
Making a cake is always fun and a lot of work....Lol! But it's so worth it in the end....
It was such a fun b'day party and I'm glad I could make this cake and the happy faces around me makes me do this more and more.
Lots more to share in upcoming posts, so keep coming back.
Until next time...take care and have fun!
-Manju
