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Saturday, June 20, 2009

Easy Race Car Track Boys’ Birthday Cake

This was our third year with a car themed birthday cake. The first year, I made a Cars movie cake. The second year, a race car track made of cupcakes (it's at the bottom of the post). This year? An actual race track.

Was it hard? Not really. But it took a few hours and made my husband think I should get a job. Not decorating cakes mind you, but a job that makes me think about things other than cake.

I started with 4 cake mixes in a roasting pan. Yes, a roasting pan. Second time I’ve tried it – both times successful. We used both yellow and chocolate cake mixes – it turns out they don’t blend if you don’t mix them together!


After baking, I had to shave off the top to flatten it. I used that part as the bottom (easier to frost), and the cake “scraps” (plus ice cream) were dessert.


I frosted the cake with store-bought chocolate frosting, and made a “six” outline with a toothpick on top, before outlining it for real with frosting. Unfortunately the white frosting (from an aerosol can) was a little thick, even with the thin tip.

For grass I used green sugar sprinkles (from the baking section), though I considered using coconut and food coloring (put them in a Ziploc bag and shake). But I knew that coconut wouldn’t fly with my kids, and I didn’t want any complaints. I wanted to use green jimmies, but couldn’t find any. And I was not about to dye the vanilla frosting green – too much work to frost. If you have the time and are a perfectionist, you can use fancy tips and make individual green dots for the grass.


The flags added an extra zing – I found a pattern online (just google “race car flag”) and printed it onto paper, taping the flags onto toothpicks.


And as for cars: many options. I went with little cars from Target’s party section (4 to a container in the goody bag filler area). If you can find chocolate cars wrapped with foil, that would be even better. Specialty candy stores carry those. Dori’s idea was to have a race car crash, so we added one car upside down, and one car on its side. That was a hit!



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2 comments:

  1. That is a great cake. I would love to see you post the photo of it on my website: www.birthday-cake-central.com in the submit your photo site.

    It is terrific and the extra exposure would sure show it off.

    Thanks,
    Jeff

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  2. I have been looking for a race car track birthday cake to follow for my son for weeks. Your's is the best I have seen. Thank You SO much for the step by step instructions, they will come in handy. You are going to help make my son's forth birthday that extra bit speical with this cake. I'm going to tell ALL my friends about you!!!

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