Has anyone made a monster truck cake?

[LaTrucha]

My son wants a monster truck cake for his birthday. I have been looking on you tube / google but I'm not very convinced by the ones I've seen 'How to' videos of.

I want to make one covered with fondant icing rather than buttercream. I'm not bad with fondant icing but haven't made a shaped cake before. I can kind of see how I would make the body of the truck but not quite how I would suspend it to put the wheels on.

I am also particularly foxed by the wheels themselves. The ones in the videos I've seen have been done with a cupcake or donut but I don't think this looks very good. I have seen ones with ace wheels but these were just photographs.

Any advice gratefully received - excpet maybe give it up as a bad job!

Can it be trucking over a muddy / rocky mound (lump of cake with chocolate buttercream), to save you having to suspend it?

I suppose. so you mean just have the wheels at the sides of the body of the truck?

I make wheels by cutting cake with a cookie cutter and covering them in fondant. To suspend the cake you can use a wooden block (not much will show by the time the wheels, etc are on) or you can get perspex (sp?) cake mounts.

I wondered if that would work. How big do you think you could go before they became too fragile?

The wheels? As big as you like really. Sandwich the layers with butter cream, butter cream the entire wheel, put in the fridge to harden and then cover them in fondant all the way round so it meets on the inside of the wheel (if that means any sense!)

By 'the inside of the wheel' I mean the side that will join the cake. I'm not very good at explaining myself!

Ok I have done a couple of these and you can definately do them with fondant icing! It not too difficult to ice but I do recommend doing a dirty coat with buttercream and then freezing for about 20mins to get a good solid outer layer cake befor putting the fondant over. As I find on that shape to work well you need to make sure the fondant is very smooth.

Re the wheels ok I have fond that dognuts work well for the shape if you need them to be simple. BUT the best way I found was to using swiss roll. I baked my own and made it a thick swiss roll (ie roll from the thinner end not the thicker end), cut into disks and then shape indents on the outer edge to look like tire tried., cut and form an indent into the middle and make sure you cave them slightly rounded on the top side. Dirty ice with butter cream and chill well. Cover with a black fondant icing make silver disks for the hub caps and insert into indentations in the middle and secure. Mark the tire tread areas with lines ect and add additional detail. I formed my hub caps into aloys and painted in necessary areas after indenting with a black etc. Give the tires a shine coat on the outside. Make sure to creat tire trims on the cake as this really makes a difference to over all look

OK re mounting. you broadly speaking have 2 options. You can make a cake stand with some thing wood and sort of reverse h frame underneath place cake on top of frame and place 4 wheels and the spoke legs. This is blinky difficult to explain. But if you want to make the tire big enough you can also do a simple cake stand with 4 legs (one BEHIND each wheel) and just use small horizontal dowles to hold the tires on.

Second option, is to make the cake on a cake plinth. Think rock,shinny rock, concreat angled and iced cake (great if you need to feed extra people) and use this additional cake layer decorated appropraitly for your choosen monster truck pose and location to secure the wheels onto. ie monster truck ontop of cake plinth, wheels on side of cake plinth. monster truck now looks like either a display in a car dealership or like an action shot of off roading etc depending on how you decorated the plith and car etc. If you want of roading dont forget mud (chocolate) on the car as well (splashing etc)

Does that make ANY sense???

No, that was clear, thanks. Am looking at the stands now. That's a good idea too.

I was thinking more like a pile of rocky road bits from the supermarket, with the body of the truck resting on the top and the wheels somehow stuck on the sides.

Rocky road a good idea.

Your wheels sound awesome ineedofrain! I think I follow what you say. A cake plinth is a good idea but don't the wheels then look like they've slipped off the edge of the track - or have I got you wrong? Not that DS will really mind as long as it looks good and monster truckish.

I am also wondering about doing flame design or similar that they often have on. I suppose I will cut it out and stick it on rather than pipe it on.

I'm a bit scared about carving a cake. Is it very hard? I usually do sugarcrafty type cakes.

Carving a cake is much easier if it's frozen, and sponge defrosts really well. Just as tasty.

Ok. Reassured. How far in advance can you make it?

YOu can make a cake and freeze it a month in advance.

I also (you may hate this idea) fill my cakes in a cake tin push down well and freezer the lot, it make s good square cake, that way and simply pop of of the tin and carve whilst still frozen.

I have a picture but I can´t post it on a public forum. it has flames on it too. is there anyway I can get it too without making it public on my profile?

No the wheels dont look they have fallen off of the road unless that is the look you want!

I've only ever needed to do it a week ahead but I should think you could have it frozen for longer. It defrosts reasonably quickly, enough to ice it later the same day.

(For future reference it's also handy if you need to produce a big batch of cupcakes for a party, leaving you just with the icing the day before)

Thanks.

I have PMd you inneedofrain . By fill, you mean sandwich them together?

Yep sandwhich them together with buttercream if you want in the tin (best if you have a push bottom or spring tin) put a sheet of grease proof on the bottom and sides if it is the first time you are doing it, as it gives you the reasurance it will actually come out! doing it this way means that you can have a filled (butter cream etc) cake that is carved into shape with chrisp corners. Which is very handy for certain designs

Cover with clingfilm over the top and freeze, once frozen pop out of tin and wrap in cling film all over. Then put back in freezer grab out when you have decided to carve and carve it. important do NOT refeezer with a crumb coating as this will make people pretty poorly, just let the crumb coating set in the fridge and then ice with fondant decorate etc.

Brilliant. Thanks.

It's official: inneedofrain makes a darn good monster truck cake! The wheels are indeed awesome

If you don´t feel convident carving, then try working out some scale befor hand. ie the base is going to be x long, then I need 2 piece y long stacked on top of each other.

Honestly the basic carving staking and then shapping is easy. keep it simple to begin with and if you make a mistake then don´t worry most things can be fixed with a little crumb coat! If it is a big mistake them go with it, make it look like something else.

Remember its cake it supposed to taste good, and people will be cutting into it and enjoying it, if the hood has a dink it will only make it look more realistic.

Thanks

It really is great