THE cake, not just any, but THE CAKE

I asked Andrew what kind of cake he wanted for his birthday and he said the Polar Express. Who wants to eat a cake colored with black frosting? Not me. So I asked him if he could have a train cake, what color train would he like. He said a red train. Who wants a ton of red frosting? Not me. SO I stopped asking questions and figured, more like hoped, that he would like whatever I made. With a bunch a phone calls to different craft stores (because Shepard's went out of business) and finally a trip to Orgon Gygi, I found the perfect cake mold! It is a 3D train engine. If you haven't ever made a 3D cake before, there are 2 pieces that fit together. You set one piece on a cookie sheet and pour the batter into it. Then you place the other piece on top and the cake raises into it. I tied the pieces together so they would stay shut and not have the cake push them apart. On the top piece there is a little vent hole for the steam to escape while it is raising and baking. I put it in the oven and set the timer. The timer went off and when I opened the oven, this is what I found... It was a lava flow of chocolate pound cake batter! Why in the world after 50 minutes was it still liquid in there? Yes, it was overfilled. I thought I only put in as much as the recipe said, but I must have done too much. I scraped the stuff off, took a piece that had baked onto the cookie sheet and plugged the little steam hole up. I let it bake a little more longer, stuck a wooden shishkabob skewer (because I didn't have any toothpicks) in the steam hole and it came out clean! After 4 hours of cooling and baking some white cake to make a train car, this is what we have!

It is a proud moment when it actually looks like something and isn't tipping over or turning into mush! Now for the frosting. Amy is the professional cake decorator of the family, so lets just say we were on the phone A LOT that night. I made 2 batches of frosting to be sure that I had enough. I started coloring them with cake dye which is a pain to mix. My hand was already getting tired by the time the frosting colors were all mixed. One mistake I made was to buy a reusable instead of disposable frosting bags. In between each color I had to wash it completely out. That was a pain! Anyway, after a couple hours wishing I had a turn table cake stand and talking a lot on the phone, this was the end result!

I just now realized that I didn't put wheels on the car, oh well.