Lovely cake decorating ladies - DS wants a Big Red Bus Cake and ..................

[Coolmama]

the best I can do is fairy cakes with sprinkles and cut-out biscuits - what is the best way to decorate this?
Please help poor cake novice .....(begging emoticon)

any ideas would be fabulous......

I am no expert but couldn't you make a sponge cake/chocolate cake in a bread tin (so rectangular with high sides) and then buy that icing that you can roll out? You can get red and black (for windows) I'm pretty sure.

My Dd wanted a red fire engine, so I made 2 rectangular cakes and wedged them together so they were tall. I decorated it in red icing(you know the ready roll stuff!) Make some white windows out of the white ready to roll icing, obviously I had to make a ladder. The wheels use the liquorice that is in a round shape, perhaps paint some pictures of people on the window. Dont forget to add little extras ie wind screen wipers,steering wheel ,another tip I use is to make a board that the cake sits on so you could make a road, i find this takes alot of the attention away from the cake and people then dont seem to notice the not quite so perfect cake!

roll-out icing - now that sounds like a plan - thank you!

Now, normally I'm against bought roll-it-out icing as it doesn't taste great BUT having tried to make red icing for ds's birthday cake (picture whole batch of butter icing ruined by adding more and more red food colouring only for it to stay PINK and then start to taste funny because of all the colouring....)I would say, use it!

love the road idea!!

also you can get little squeezy tubes of icing that come in red, black, yellow and green and are perfect for the details (eg you could do a white destination board with black writing on the front)

icing in a tube - now that is definitely more my style!

• how about if I make the cake and then shape it to vague outline of the bus and then lay the cut-out red icing on top with the details and liquorice wheels etc - would that work?

I would make one large cake, double recipe and baked in a roasting tin sized pan. The cut in half and stick together, to get a high rectangle, you could even cut in 3 and do 3 layers high.

Roll out red icing thinly (well a couple of mm thick) brush cake with warmed up jam, and then drape the icing over the cake. Cut the corners by pinching the icing togetherdown the corners, trim and then smooth down (use fingers and water to get a neat finish. Trim off excess icing all round.

This should (in theory) give you a red rectangle shape. Stick on 4 liquorice wheels, use jam or water to stick. cut white or black roll out icing to make windows and a destination board. Use black whiting icing to make details. Use the yellow icing from teh roll out pack (you usually get 4 colours in a pack, you will need at least 2 packs to get enough red) and make headlights.

All done.

Or to get enough red icing hunt yellow pages for a cake decorating shop as they will sell larger quantities of the red icing you will need without buying loads of mixed colours ina pack.

Wouldn't it be easier to do a side view, iyswim - less worry about making it tall, and only one side of detail to do?

sorry - should have explained that I am definitely not adventurous enough to do an upright cake - and bless you all who thought I was capable of such a feat - but this cake will be lying on its side! - (rueful emoticon!)

CM surely it would be easier to make an upright cake rather than trying to make a flat one, I have to be honest I make all my DDs cakes and Im no artist but just getting that look from their faces is worth it. Another tip i know is buy the cake eg a Maderia cake, this comes in rectangle shapes and then all you have to do is put the ready roll on, wish I could find a photo of the fire engine but most of the phots are in the attic!

well, the thought behind the flat cake is that I have to panic about one side only!!

Good idea

Thank you for all the help and good tips - the cake was a bit of a cobbled mish-mash, but DS loved it - shouted "red bus, red bus, red bus" all day! -