.Trains are popular with kids of all ages, so a train birthday cake is the perfect way to showcase your favourite Choo Choo bar. Perth home bakers will find that this cake looks fantastic but is fairly straightforward to make.
Ingredients for One Medium Sized Cake:
225 gram of softened unsalted butter
225 grams caster sugar
225 grams of self raising flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
4 eggs
Instructions:
Preheat your oven to 180 degrees. Cream the sugar and butter together until it is light and creamy. Beat in each of the eggs slowly and once they are incorporated fold in the flour and baking powder.
Divide the cake mixture into four 25 x 8 centimetre bar tins. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes until golden brown. Allow the all the cakes to cool fully on a wire rack before assembling and decorating.
Making the Train:
You will need a 225 gram sponge roll,
red, blue, apricot, purple and green food colouring
1 package of thin liquorice
Chocolate sprinkles,
20 round chocolate biscuits
A pack of chocolate buttons
1 Ice cream wafer
A few pieces of popcorn
Choo Choo bars for decoration
A wooden skewer, a pipe cleaner and a serving board.
You will also need buttercream for filling and icing.
Cut each of the bar cakes vertically to create eight pieces. Five of these pieces will be needed to make the back of the engine and the tops of the train carriages. The remaining three pieces need to be cut horizontally to create the bases of the carriages and the engine. The piece needs to be cut to create a quarter size piece.
Create the engine smoke stack by cutting a four centimetre slice off, holding it upright and using a plain cutter. The rest of the sponge roll will be needed to make the engine.
Use the buttercream as the glue to assemble your train. You will need to tint small amounts of the buttercream different colours for each of the carriages. Cover the sides and tops of the carriages and engine. Outline the tops of the carriages and the engine with thin liquorice.
Cover the sides and top of your smoke stack with red tinted buttercream and coat with the chocolate sprinkles. Use your wooden skewer to make a hole through several pieces of popcorn and thread them onto the pipe cleaner. This should be inserted into the smokestack.
Use a Choo Choo bar to create the effect of railway sleepers. Use the chocolate biscuits to represent wheels and use the chocolate buttons for additional detail. Finally, attach a strip of wafer to the front of the engine as a “cow catcher”.
