Thomas the Tank Engine Cake

When Corban turned 3, he was obsessed with Thomas the Tank Engine. I got inspiration for this cake from here. It was quite a process....I made a trial engine a week before to make sure I could do it!

What you need:

2 cake mixes, whatever flavor you want

ingredients to make mixes as directed on box

Buttercream frosting - I can't remember, but I think I made 10 cups or so

Oreos

White chocolate

M&M's

Black, blue, yellow, red, and green food coloring - actually, I used red piping gel instead of the food coloring, do as you want.

Desired candies for the train cars

1 large marshmallow

toothpicks

thin wooden dowels

I prepared cake mixes as directed on the box, making one of them in 2 loaf pans and the other one in 2 loaf pans and 1 (14.5 oz) vegetable can (very well greased). Fill the can a little more than half way and place upright on a cookie sheet (for possible spills) to bake. I can't remember how long I baked the can.....I just watched it and took it out when a toothpick came out clean. (sorry to not be more specific than that...it's been 4 years!)

After all the cakes had cooled, I placed 3 loaf cakes in a row on top of oreos on the cake board to elevate them a little. The 4th loaf cake I cut in half width-wise and stacked one half on top of the other to make the cab part of the engine. The can-shaped cake was the front part of the engine. I had to trim it to fit. I put some cake scraps on the sides of the can part back near the cab to (part of where the red piping is) to copy the actual train. I held things together with dowels and toothpicks where necessary.

I frosted to look just like the train - as well as I could.

*For the engine wheels, I tinted white chocolate candy coating blue and dipped oreos in to cover.  I "glued" them to the train with frosting and added a blue M&M to each one for added detail.
*The smokestack is a large marshmallow, covered with black frosting and held on top with a toothpick. 
*For the face, I drew it on there with a toothpick and black food coloring.
*The cars I just hollowed out a little bit of the middle, frosted with different colors, and filled with chocolate covered raisins and M&Ms.  That was the easy part!

That cake took me the better part of a day, and I could barely stand the thought of actually cutting Thomas!  For the party, the kids all wanted parts of the candy-filled cars anyways....so we ended up saving most of Thomas and freezing it....we ate it several months later!

Corban could not have been happier with his cake - and his friends were pretty thrilled too.