Itsy Bitsy Foodies

This train cake was the centerpiece of my son’s Train 1st Birthday Party earlier this year.  My inspiration came from an ad that I saw on Hostess with the Mostess for birthday cakes in Parent’s Magazine.  I constructed the engine by starting with a rectangular cake base.  I then stacked some cake rounds on top and smoothed it over, filling in some of the gaps with vanilla buttercream frosting.  I used a cupcake in an ice cream cone as the steam.  Linzer cookie wheels filled with raspberry jam made perfect train wheels {and ended up being the birthday boy’s favorite part of his cake!}.

I initially planned to make the cars out of cake, too.  However, for the sake of simplicity (and durability) I reverted to a childhood tradition of building gingerbread houses out of milk cartons and graham crackers.  I had three tea boxes that ended up being the perfect size for the cars.  I dipped the graham crackers in red and blue Wilton chocolate melts to match the goodies {chocolate-dipped pretzels, homemade “animal” cookies and homemade train chocolates} that were stacked inside of the cars.  Then I piped the edges with buttercream frosting for a finishing touch.