The Cake

I'm not showing you this because I think this is the best cake in the world. In fact, I could go on and ON and ON about the things I would do different and the things I don't like about it. BUT here it is and it really wasn't hard! I was worried about cutting a cake into a certain shape, but it cut great. So if you have any shaped cake ideas, GO FOR IT!!

I used 2 boxed cake mixes. One in a 9x13 and then an 8x8 and 4 giant muffins. I started about by tracing my 9x13 pan and my 8x8 pan on white paper. I cut those pieces of paper in to the shape I wanted the truck to be.

Bake the cakes and let them cool (but not too much) flip them over face down so the top is flat.

Then you're ready to cut. I used that template to cut the cake. In this picture, I have the "template" laid over the cake and I am trimming the cake. The trimmings were perfect for filling in the bottom of the cake where it wasn't completely level. They were also good for eating while we worked. Until I could get the cake under there, we used raisin boxes and coke lids...whatever works, right?


This is the main part cut from the 9x13 cake. The white is flour. We used a lot of flour to make sure the cake didn't stick.

Then I decided where I wanted the wheels, and traced around the giant cupcakes where they were going to fit in and cut out a notch for the wheels/cupcakes.

all cut and working on propping with the trimmed pieces of cake.

We put a very very thin layer of plain icing over the whole cake to kind of seal it off so that when we iced it the crumbs wouldn't spread. Then I used a toothpick to make dots outlining where the different colors of icing would go....kind of drawing the parts on the cake.

Next comes the fun part...mixing colors! I just needed these three so it was easy. Thanks to my cake making pro friend Christy, she informed me that there is a red "no taste" coloring that you can buy. perfecto! Once they were mixed, I started spreading them on using the dots I made with toothpicks as my guide.

The next step is a must: give your baby the icing lid and he will love you forever!

While I was icing the cake, mom was working on the tires. She crunched up Oreos, covered the giant cupcakes in chocolate icing and then dipped the cupcakes into the oreos. I like the texture!

Next comes outlining. I just bought this tube of black and it was great. My decorating tips screwed right onto the tube!

My mom had seen an ocean cake somewhere that used crunched up Nilla Wafers for the sand. So we did that for our sand in the dump truck...kinda like the sand paper we used for the invitation. Again, I like the texture.

This is where I want to hand the thing over to my mom and make her do it, but I have to talk myself into doing this myself so that I'll be so good one day that my daughter will want me to do it for her! She is much better than me at writing, but I did it and it was OK.

Finished product!

This would've come out looking like a lump of junk if not for my mom!! It was fun and really not hard! Like I said, if I could go back I would change some things, but this was just fine. Especially for a boy who wouldn't touch cake with a 10 foot pole!

Somehow these got left off my other posts....In between the cake decorating, my dad and I were working in my flower beds. Kanyon wanted to help, so I gave him this pot. This is him gagging after getting some dirt in his mouth (he gags if ANYTHING other than his bottle...well, he even gags at that some....go in his mouth)

This is him going back for more.

Here is our little cowboy on his new toy. Chief and Gram sent this to klp for his birthday. It is called a Po-Knee and he LOVES it.It has straps that you put around the grown ups leg so that it stays on while the kid rides. You push his ear and it makes galloping noises. Ignore my nappy non washed non straightened, I've been baking or digging in my flowerbed all day hair. We dressed klp in his sheriff vest that The Hills from MT sent when he was born and his cowboy boots Chief and Gram bought him when he was born. Somehow we never got around to putting pants on him.

This concludes the birthday posts.....Way too much about way too little. We have a busy couple of weeks coming up so you may not hear from us for a while.