Tuesday, 22 July 2008

• The Tractor Cake

  For Lewis' birthday, we didn't do any crazy party like last year's pirate dress-up party, but I did make a tractor cake.
  
  For prep, I looked at some photos of real tractors, and some photos of tractor cakes, but before I did that I had this vague notion that I would use loaf pans and two sizes of chocolate-covered donuts. (Turns out some other people have had the same idea, but I can at least tell myself that the idea was there before I looked at photos!) After looking at the photos of other cakes, I decided to stick with my vague notion and try to put a tractor together with two loaf pans, no plans.
  
  I sawed off the tops of the loaves (the rounded parts) with a serrated knife, and used one loaf for the base of the tractor. I then cut about a third into the next loaf (with a slanted cut) and used it for the back of the 2nd level. I took a thinner piece for the front of the tractor and placed it lengthwise across the front. I cut a slant on the part of the front piece that met with the back piece. It didn't quite look like a tractor yet, so I took another piece and stacked it on top. I put frosting between all the levels to assemble the cake once I was happy with the placement and shape of the pieces .
  
  This setup was fairly sturdy, but after it was frosted, I ended up using some bendy straws sticking out the top to stabilize the three levels because we had to transport the cake to the party. I actually started out using the bendy straws cut in a short length for decoration, but then I thought of sticking them all the way down into the cake.
  
  I used the straws cut in one inch lengths stuck into the donuts to attach the donuts to the cake after it was frosted. I used four pieces of straw on the large donuts, and two pieces on the small donuts, and I put some frosting on the sides that met with the cake, just for extra sticking power. Then I frosted around each tire where it met the cake.
  
  I used buttercream frosting, and decided to go with yellow for the tractor because Lewis is pretty into construction vehicles AND tractors, and the yellow looks good with the chocolate donut wheels. I used chocolate frosting (buttercream with about a cup of cocoa powder beaten in - got the cocoa powder in bulk at Winco) for the details, and green for the accents, including a "2" I put on the roof of the tractor. I also wrote his name on the back. I just freehanded the chocolate detailing (again, no plans). I put a door on each side, defined the windows up top, and then just kind of did different lines on the rest of it.
  
  We let the birthday boy blow out his two candles (which he did very well!) and then we let him pick at the cake. He chose a big donut wheel to start with! (You can kind of see the straws sticking out of the donut here).
  
  Another thing Lewis is into is cooking (you know that if you read this blog!), and his Aunt Ana and Uncle David got him a mini chef outfit thing - an apron, a chef hat, an oven mitt, and two potholders (all Lewis-sized). So cute!
  

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