My littlest niece Rebecca turned two last week, and I was excited to make her birthday cake this year! Making cakes for her big brother and sister have been some of my favourite baking projects of the past few years, so I was eager to find out from my brother what she wanted. Until I heard the answer and did a Google image search for “Thomas the Tank Birthday Cake”.

Unlike in the past where Google has provided lots of fun ideas and inspiration for everything from front-end loaders to princess castles, every Thomas related cake was either 3D or made out of fondant or looked super complicated. It was my friend Lydia (who herself made a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle cake for her little guy this year!) who had the idea of just doing a 9×13″ cake, with a little toy Thomas cruising over top. Genius!

And so this post is my lifeline to all the cake-making aunties out there who have fear strike their hearts upon thinking they will have to craft a 3D train for their little loved one. This was so much easier. Here’s how I did it:

• I baked a 9×13″ vanilla cake, which was actually the cake I was talking about the other day, minus the booze of course
• I made a 3/4 of a batch of My Favourite Buttercream, reserved about 1/3 cup to tint blue to write on the cake, and dyed the rest green, then iced the whole cake.
• I bought a small container of brown fondant (“chocolate flavoured” ew), rolled it out, and used a pizza cutter to slice long strips for the railroad. My brother smuggled me Rebecca’s Percy toy so I knew how big to make the tracks.
• I decorated the border by piping little bursts with a large star tip, and wrote on the top with blue icing in a small round tip.
• Once I got to my brother’s house, we put Thomas on top and added a candle.

Rebecca loved her cake, and I have to say, it was super fluffy and delicious! I wonder what she’ll be into when she’s 3?