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Jack's lucky to have someone make a lovely cake like this. Who doesn't like trains? This lovely beautiful birthday cake is from the kitchens of  LocklearAoi

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Here is the final stage of decoration on the birthday cake I made. Iced with Buttercream Iceing (made from scratch) and Royal Iceing (also made from scratch) for the decorations and writing. Left the wheels bare for effect. And 'urban-camo' APC being carried by the train. Jack's age being mentioned with the 5 on the top of the engin and on the front of the boiler. There is still left over scraps of the cake and iceing in the fridge! But, this is (was) my attempt at a custome cake.

Used two different cake recipys (from scratch, not box) for the cake. Main reason was that the first recipy i had choosen only did an 8x8 cake. The other recipy was a Hershy's 5 minute Chocolate Cake recipy (will have to dig that one up as well once i get my cookbook back.) Base was done in a 13x9 pan. The train was done in the 8x8 pan. Didn't have any model or pictures of trains. Just sliced the 8x8 into assorted parts to build up the train. Cutting one long stretch of cake into a rought tube, then sliced it, kind of like bread, to get the wheels of the train.

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For the icing, did up two different icing recipys. The base icing (13x9 cake) was a Buttercream Icing, as follows:

Buttercream Recipe
1/2 cup solid vegetable shortening
1/2 cup butter or margarine
1 teaspoon Clear Vanilla Extract
4 cups sifted confectioners' sugar
2 tablespoons milk

Cream butter and shortening with electric mixer. Add vanilla. Gradually add sugar, one cup at a time, beating well on medium speed. Scrape sides and bottom of bowl often. When all sugar has been mixed in, icing will appear dry. Add milk and beat at medium speed until light and fluffy. Makes 3 cups.

Keep icing covered with a damp cloth until ready to use. For best results, keep icing bowl in refrigerator when not in use. Refrigerated in an airtight container, this icing can be stored for 2 weeks. Rewhip before using.

That is the recipy as found in my cake decorating book. I changed it a bit in my making, replacing the solid vegetable shortening with a 1/2 cup of butter, bringing it to a full cup of butter. Left out to warm and soften to room temperture before use. Then 3 Tablespoons of corn syrup added to the final mix to 'thin the icing' so that it would spread smoothly over the cake.

The decorations, piping on the cake was done with Royal Icing, recipy as follows:

Royal Icing Recipe

3 level Tablespoons Wilton Meringue Powder
4 cups sifted confectioners' sugar (about 1 lb.)
6 Tablespoons water*

Beat all ingredients at low speed for 7-10 minutes (10-12 minutes at high speed for portable mixer) until icing forms peaks. Makes 3 cups.
* When using large countertop mixer or for stiffer icing, use 1 Tablespoon less water.

Had a bit of trouble with this icing in the first application (orange boiler) where the icing was too stiff for the icing bags (disposable) that i was using. Causeing the seam of the bag to split open. Making it hard to keep a constant presure when applying it. Solved this little problem with the other colours by dipping out a teaspoon (silverware, not mesuring spoon) of water or two into the bowl of icing, mixing it up with the colouring to make it work better in the icing bags.

Couldn't get ahold of a copper, silver, grey or brown colouring for icing in time, so addlibed with the few colours i did have. Mixing some red, orange and yellow together to make the boiler colour. And adding just a very small touch of Black icing colouring to a bowl of the white to get the grey colour used on the rest of the train.

When re-assembling the train for the cake, had iced each piece compleatly once on the cake, using the icing to act as a kind of 'glue' to keep the parts together. Balancing the smokestack on the boiler was a bit of a challange, since didn't want to have it spiked on with a toothpick that someone might accidently bite into.

For the writing on the cake, i used a letter press to indent the base icing with the writting i wanted. Then piped onto the indents with a round tip icing bag.

Since i was doing this cake while also working full time, it was made in stages over a couple days. The final icing of the cake took me about 5 hours, from getting the ingrediants and tools together to make the icing till the final boarder decorations around the base of the cake.

Chocolate Cake

1 cup flour
1/2 cup white sugar
6 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa, sifted
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons buttermilk or soured milk*
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten
2 tablespoons vegetable oil (Olive oil does NOT work)
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 tablespoon instant coffee dissolved in 1/2 cup hot water

* To make soured milk, pour 1 1/2 teaspoons lemon juice or vinegar into the measuring cup, then add milk to make the required amount of liquid. Allow to sit for about 5 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350 F. (325 F, if using a glass pan). Grease and flour an 8-inch square pan.
In a large mixing bowl, mix together the flour, white sugar, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Add the buttermilk, brown sugar, egg, vegetable oil and vanilla, and beat vigorously for 2 minutes. Add the prepared hot coffee until the batter is completely mixed. (The batter will be quite thin.)
Pour the batter into the greased, floured pan. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
Allow the cake to cool completely before serving.

This cake recipy comes from Margaret Carspecken's 'Sweet Treats Easy-To-Make Dessert Recipes from the kitchen of Marsha Redfox'.

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Allergy warning – recipe contains dairy & egg products