Easy Birthday Cakes for Boys: Trains

Okay, this is the last in my series of easy cakes for boys and girls. From past posts you know:

---I’m not a good baker
---I made two passable car-related cakes
---I made my daughter happy with a princess cake and flower cupcakes.

So I saved the EASIEST for last. This one is a train cake, and it was a hit. The best part: you

BUY pound cake and don’t have to bake at all! You can make this cake as big as you want by adding on pound cake cars.

So, here are the details. Buy several pound cakes and canned frosting and food dye. Dye the frosting whatever color you want. The engine is made with a block of pound cake, and an additional chunk on top for the engineer to sit in. But really, there’s no engineer in this cake, which eliminates much of the carving.

Decorate it with red licorice (or black if you like that – yuck is my personal thought on black licorice). Wheels are made with Oreos. Windows are made with my favorite Wilton frosting in a can ($5 at the grocery store – it comes with 4 tips).

For the engine, you can make a steam vent with construction paper and cotton balls. For the other cars, you can load them up with logs (i.e. pirouette cookies or the like) and connect them with licorice. You could put toys on top as well.