My son Sriram's 3rd birthday was nearing, as usual i started planning well in advance for a simple party. I had a casual talk with my son what he wanted for his birthday & the chat continued to the cake design he immediately showed interest on baking a Thomas cake rather than buying one from shop. I quickly gasped his inner thoughts, while its a biggest ever challenge as i know my son would expect a perfectly shaped cake though bought fresh from the shop be made at home. Took a day or two to analyse whether i could handle such a big task for making a proper birthday cake, presenting before 20 guests while 7 months pregnant was an alarming job to complete. It did take my breath away but now i feel lot accomplished as it came out well to the satisfaction of my son.
First trial of Thomas: pondering on the websites for designing Thomas took a week almost. We both then decided on the color, flavor etc. Lot of home bakers around the world had published their professional birthday cake photos on their blog gave me an idea of not drawing or using Thomas train decor set but to build one. Accidentally i stumbled on all recipes.com which linked to Betty crocker where they had a video of making a train cake. Thanks a million to both the websites they just nearly saved my life. So Thomas train cake became a success only after the first trail. Bought a loaf cake from walmart to try thomas, collected all icing materials took a while to frame the icing recipe carefully went through the review all done on a thursday evening came out the train up to my expectation to win my husbands confidence. But can you imagine my son pointing out the littlest imperfections on trains face? he said my thomas usually is happy why did you make him sad? nose not perfect etc... Just got dumb folded by the comments dint give hope what happened next was a cake decorating class in progress. Never i had imagined of making (baking ) a cake and ending up with a class on cake decoration. All are positive motivations right? life sometimes seems extra challenging but mom's are willing to face it down right happily when its posed by their lovely little ones. So a million thanks to my son who is molding me in to a professional baker "mommy".
"Although the cake was not for a first birthday but one of my first cakes for a proud birthday party".
So now that had a look at how the famous thomas train turned out here is the recipe to my success story.
Cake : I made a 2 layer chocolate cake with a cream cheese chocolate filling, frosted with buttercream icing toped with m&m's.
For the chocolate cake: Simple i bought the "betty crocker" chocolate butter mix.Baked the cake according to the instructions on the box. It came out well on 11x15 anchor glass pan even though the mix called for 9x13 pan. But needed 2 boxes to make 2 layers seperately.
For the filling: Duncanhines cream cheese frosting mixed with hersheys chocolate syrup for chocolate filling works well and tastes great.
For the frosting: Here is the recipe for buttercream frosting.
1 cup crisco{blue color} vegetable shortening
1 lb icing sugar
1 tbsp meringue powder
1 tsp clear vanilla
3 tbsp water
beat with a hand mixer on medium speed for few mins while the ingredients fully combined & forms a stiff peak. Serving size is approximately 2-3 cups. Now you can add desired colors to the frosting. For the above cake i added wilton orange gel color, green, royal blue, golden yellow & burgundy for lettering.
To build the train: You will get a wonderful idea by visiting the web links below.
http://www.bettycrocker.com/videos/videolibrary/birthday-cakes/how-to-make-a-train-cake
Even though the trial thomas train turned out well than the original party train it did not matter much for my son he was contended with the train itself, as i promised. For me it was a hectic day to complete a cake in between all other dinner menu. Applause and appreciation where the back up for my enthusiasm to take such a leap,the cake rewarded well with a good taste & flavor for the hardwork.A finishing note, my son always ends up a story with a "The End" suits for a well accomplished task.
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