Second post of the day just to log my nephew’s Dumptruck Birthday Cake. I swear I just finished making his School Bus Cake a few weeks ago. He’s the youngest of my nieces and nephews, and his birthday comes first in April, then the others follow in May, June and August. It’s like BAM! 3! BAM! 4! BAM! 7! (SEVEN!!!) BAM! 5! They’re all getting so big!

Anyway, let me rant for a quick minute about these Wilton Cake pans. I borrowed Lydia’s dumptruck cake pan that she used for Ethan’s 1st Birthday (someone else who’s growing up waaayyy too fast!). My problem is that by the time you get a crumb coat on, all the fine detail you can see in the naked cake (below) gets covered up. So you end up having to follow the Wilton piping instructions exactly (which I did for Elmo way back in my 1st ever blog post!!) or improvising (which I did this time).

All in all, I think it turned out pretty cute, and the birthday boy loved it! I did NOT love the cake recipe I used out of this month’s Everyday Food magazine, so I won’t copy that here, but instead direct you to what I should have used, which is this classic 1-2-3-4 cake recipe. And have to give another quick endorsement of Americolor gel food coloring, which I love love love! Look how black the black is! The Wilton gels are like a dark purple, and I was never really happy with them.