decorating a cake if you can't cook bake or decorate

[bakedacake]

not sure if this should be in arts and crafts but does anybody have any really really really simple ideas for a birthday cake for a three year old boy? this is so not something i am good at and for the last two years have just made a cake (which trust me in itself was huge) and just iced it and put some sweets on top! wanted to do something like this again but maybe just make it look a bit better? was about to try and make a train cake using swiss roll a la annabel karmel recipe and safe to say it looked nothing like hers. i need to just keep it simple - any good ideas? i need to make it pretty soon - party this weekend!!

Train cake topper

Next day delivery available but expensive.

Train candle & holder

you can get icing that you just roll on. Tis expensive and not to adult tastes but kids love it.

Make a square cake and then cut rectangles out to make the basic shape of an engine. Use biscuit cutters to make the shape of the wheels. Cover with the icing and decorate using writing icing.

thanks! i saw (i think on mumsnet) about making a cake with green icing and then using chocolate sticks for the tracks and then putting a toy train on top. i might just do that! thanks again

that sounds like a great and easy idea bakedacake. There's also some great edible glitter etc you can get at cake decorating shops that kids love, or decorate the outside of the iced cake (once you've done the train lines) with lots of sweets/choc buttons etc to kiddify it up a bit. Also, I'd say those shoe lace sweets would be better than choc sticks for a train line as you can bend them which might look better

My local cake decorating shop hires the shaped tins out for about £1.50 a day. They have a VW Beetle one that I'm dying to try out! I would then cover in ready made coloured icing and either use sweets for the detail or cut shapes out of a different colour ready made icing. I am very lazy!

If you look on ebay for cake toppers, you can get all sorts of things printed onto a circle of icing that you slap on top of your iced cake. Ds1 is having a Doctor Who cake that way, this year. Watch out for the cake toppers made of rice paper though, they aren't so tasty.

Last year ds2 had a dinosaur cake. Chocolate icing (mud) and all his tiny toy dinosaurs (washed!) all over it.

Does he like animals? If he does then these are very easy to make... I know as I can make them and am not very artistic:

pigs

or

frogs

Also, kiddies get a cake each so no fighting over who got the best bit of the train etc!