Thomas the Cake

It's hard to believe that it's nearly a month since Little Miss C turned three. A busy month in which we've had lots of family adventures, but it means I've not yet had chance to tell you about the cake, or more accurately about Thomas the Cake!

I'm not sure where she got the idea from but one day, about two months before her birthday, LMC suddenly announced (as toddlers do) that she was going to have a Thomas Cake for her birthday. Now she is a little obsessed with Thomas the Tank Engine at the moment, but it still took me a bit by surprise.

I then did something that no parent should ever do when they need to make a cake for their child – I sat her down with my iPad and asked her which cake from the hundreds of Thomas ones on Google images she wanted. Why, oh why?

She's a fussy little girl and quickly decided that a boring one featuring a picture of everyone's favourite Tank Engine wasn't good enough. Oh no. Instead she wanted a Thomas that she could eat.

Lots of internet research later I armed myself with lots of ready to roll icing in different colours, some Thomas face edible cupcake toppers from eBay and one of her model Thomas trains to copy.

I'd not worked with ready to roll icing before and now have a whole new level of respect for those people who make wonderful creations from it. Eventually a Thomas shape was formed though and with the face attached even I became pretty sure that it should at least be obvious as to what it was supposed to be.

The cake (just a simple chocolate sponge) was covered in green icing, with some grey laid on top to form the track. The completed Thomas was then placed on the track (causing a slight dip in the cake at this point due to his weight!) and a number three arranged next to him.

Come the big day I am delighted to say that as soon as I walked out of the house carrying the cake LMC gave up a big shout of "It's my Thomas cake" before running towards me. Phew!

I was so relieved that she liked it and that it had met her cake expectations. Next time though I'll avoid google images and also leave a little bit more time for the artwork.