Thomas Train Cake & Minnie Mouse Cake

No :( I hope I didn't lose you guys! I never posted a winner to the contest because no one entered! So sad :( I know on my end I need to step it up lol. It's sooo hard with work and two little ones! Here's a fun post for you!

As I mentioned in my previous post, my son turned 3!  We had a Thomas themed party (of course) which meant Mommy had to make a Thomas cake.  I really don't like store bought cake and can never justify dishing out all that money for it.  I always like to take on the challenge of making it.  Now, I'm not saying I make these beautiful masterpieces haha.  They are definitely homemade!  With that said, they are yummy and always a hit!  I needed an idea so I started searching Pinterest a few months in advance.  I wasn't really feeling most of the cakes so I came up with my own.  Here's what you need:

 I never ended up using the sprinkles, orange food coloring (totally thought it was brown haha), or blue sparkle gel.  I went a different route than what I originally planned.  You will also need a rectangle cake pan (make 2) and a 9 inch circle pan (make 2 and cut in half).  Another great thing to get are the cardboard pieces they sell in the cake section.  Mine came with 3 in a pack.  This cake used two taped side by side.

Here's the bottom layer.  1 rectangle cake with 1 circle cake cut in half and placed on each side of the rectangle.  You will also need to shave down the top of the rectangle cake.

 Due to the roundness of the top of the cake, I couldn't do what I originally thought.  In my crazy mind I envisioned a flat surface with the train running around a lake.  Well that didn't happen because if I shaved the top part of this cake it would have been weird.  My wonderful hubby saved the day by just shaving down a track!  It was genius!  Don't tell him I just said that ;)

Tada!  I made everything green like grass.  The train track is made up of pieces of the chocolate bar and black sparkle gel in a tube.  I crumbled chocolate chip cookies and put them on the sides of the cake like dirt.  It was yummy!  Since my son loves M&Ms I wrote his name out in them and used them as the cargo Thomas was carrying.  Everyone loved it AND it was yummy!  Now, onto my niece's cake!

My niece (who turned 3 exactly a week after my son) was having a Minnie Mouse party.  They asked a local bakery how much a Minnie cake would be and they wanted a RIDICULOUS amount of money!  I offered to make the cake because my son had a Mickey Mouse party the year before and I made his cake.  This was his cake:

So easy!  You need a 9 inch circle cake pan, a 6 inch circle cake pan, and a cupcake pan.  I made a funfetti cake with rainbow chip frosting.  I dyed the frosting blue for fun.  I had my wonderful teenage cousin make the cupcakes.  They have a regular Oreo and 2 tiny Oreos.  If you liked that, wait until you see Minnie!

 Don't you love it?  The pink and simpleness make me happy lol.  It seriously couldn't be an easier cake to make!  At first, they wanted me to make it black.  I advised against it because BLACK FOOD COLORING STAINS.  Avoid it folks!  The pink was bad enough lol.  We opted for chocolate frosting.  The hard part was she wanted a strawberry banana filling.  I never made a cake like that before.  It was tricky.  I used banana pudding and sliced up fresh strawberries.  Use it to "frost" the top of the first layer.   I had to quickly put the top on, frost it, and REFRIGERATE it.  Otherwise it would have fallen apart!  The next part that was tricky was the bow.  Boy was I making it wayyyy too complicated.  Turns out, hubby saved the day again!  He said to use cupcakes.  I grabbed two cupcakes, yanked the Oreos, refrosted, stuck them between the ears, and piped on the circles and the line.  I feel like an expert now!  Like I said before, it's totally homemade and you can tell BUT it's always a hit!