Lightning McQueen and Mater Cake

Tanner wanted a Cars cake for his 4th birthday that featured Lightning McQueen and Mater.  What fun!  This cake is a chocolate cake with Oreos and fudge and buttercream filling.  I decorated the side of the cake with a mountain-esque landscape and the top is decorated like the end of a long, long race.  Mater right by Lightning McQueen's side.  I found both in the toy aisle and Target and thought they were perfect!

I used some candy from our local candy store, Sweet Dreams, that looks like rocks, or in this case, boulders.  They are actually chocolate flavored candies and I think they add a really neat detail to the landscape.  

I was also asked to make a dozen cake pops and theme them to the Cars theme.  I made some red and some black and topped them with gum paste "Route 66" signs and the others were street signs with a #4 or the letter T on it.  You know, Tanner's turning 4!!  :)

Here's what the two look like together.

I hope that Tanner had an excellent birthday party!!

Charlie's Cars Cake #2

Jennifer requested a Cars cake for her son Charlie who was turning 5. She wanted me to incorporate Cars from the Disney movies on the cake somehow and I was able to send her an idea of what I had in mind. With the number of guests she was expecting, one cake wouldn't cut it, so a two-tiered cake was in order.

She requested a yellow cake with chocolate buttercream frosting. Aside from that, she knew that I would add buttercream and fondant details on the top of the cake, not to mention some actual characters from the movies.

Can I just add that I found a new recipe for yellow cake that I absolutely ADORE! Most yellow cake recipes that I've come across have either needed cake flour and/or have been dry cakes. Not something I'm happy with. The recipe I used for this cake was a moist cake which used all purpose flour and a whole lot of buttermilk. YUMMY!

The chocolate buttercream was delicious, too! A new recipe with loads of melted chocolately goodness. (I'm getting hungry now...)

Here's how the cake turned out:

I hope that Charlie enjoyed his cake and had a wonderful party this weekend!