Birthday cake ideas for 5-year old boy

[Lanky]

I'd like to make ds's birthday cake and am looking for inspiration. He's into typical five-year old boy things - transformers, spiderman, dinosaurs etc. It would be great if anyone has any good ideas - pictures would be even better. I'm finding it hard to get inspiration via google as the only cakes I can find are made by professionals and not that easy to copy. Thanks in advance

Hi Lanky
I would recommend going onto ebay and searching for cake toppers. You pick what you want on it then you get sent an edible paper thing which you just stick on top of a plain cake, simple!!!
We have a stock of these in for dd and ds's birthday!
Hope that helps
Will find a link

Thanks. I'll have a look. Was hoping to 'model' something though.

How about making a chocolate cake in a pyrex bowl. Smother it in chocolate butter cream to make it look like a pile of mud, then stick some worm/snake sweets on.

I have a train one that I made ds for his 1st birthday on my profile.
Was quite easy and would work just as well for a 5 year old.
....in fact ds will be getting this cake for a few years to come!

thanks for ideas. I'm sure he'd love a worm cake! Did you make that with those individual train cake tins from Lakeland justneedsomesleep?

No, just made some rectangular sponge cakes and trimmed the edges and cut into four other rectangles...if you get what i mean...

Mix up a lot of different coloured icing, buy lots of different sweets
Try mini oreos for the wheels, mini chocolate roll for the funnell, jelly beans, candy sticks,all kinds of liquourice...

Tips - candy sticks edged on the carriage tops to stop sweets falling off.

Pull apart a marshmallow for the steam coming out the funnel - sticky and messy but effective

Dye dessicated coconut green for grass...

Took a while but am so proud because it was for ds's 1st and my best cake - getting the hang of this 'mum' malarky...
Also tried an aeroplane cake which wasn't so great - looked like a squashed grey dinosaur!

useless at links, but this is what inspired me...
uk.video.yahoo.com/watch/3395130/9493531

I looked at some grey cakes - aeroplanes, darleks etc and decided that I didn't really fancy the idea of eating grey icing.

I'm sure ds would prefer it if I bought a cake from the supermarket!

Maybe mumsnet should set up a birthday cake picture gallery.

hedgehog cake -its mostly assembly, looks impressive, but takes min effort and doesnt need precision

make a round cake, sandwich as usual and cut it in half - into 2 semicircles, put on a large cake board with cut sides down to form a bump. Slather on chocolate buttercream, make a little 'face' at one end, cover in broken lengths of flake/chocolate fingers/matchmakers about 1-2 inches long. Eyes - white chocolate buttons with icing dots, nose malteser
Dye some marzipan green, run it through a coarse grater and loosely cover the rest of the board. add some jelly worms etc around on grass - have used icing flowers for a not so little girl... will try and find pictures

I love decorating cakes, especially for me children

My mum made a hedgehog cake for me when I was small. She used almonds that she cut into small slivers to form the spikes. She also made a fabulous magic roundabout cake - showing my age here!

DO the hedgehog but use cadbury's chocolate fingers.

I know, last time I made it for a retro party... it has childhood appeal!

Search on flickr.com for loads of photos of amateur cakes.

A '5' shape decorated according to theme?

Train cake tin from Lakeland is nice but expensive.

Tractor and others on my profile.

There are lots of good books on children's cakes - there are several dinosaurs and similar in mine - I made a dragon for my DM once (not on profile, but he was relatively easy and looked fab on a pile of chocolate coins) You could get one from a library (or I will link to one on Amazon if you are more inclined to buy one)?

Thanks Stealthsquiggle. I can't see any cakes on your profile. Just a pumpkin and squiggle!

I like the sound of a dragon. I think I'll buy a book over the weekend.

Thanks for all the suggestions

Sorry - you should be able to see them now (I am probably identifiable by my cakes so they are only visible to MN mates)

I will check which book the dragon was in and post a link later - but if you have a RL bookshop then a browse is probably called for.

Hi Lanky, google Debbie Brown, Powerofgreyskull recomended her, haven't got the book but I managed to make the stable cake with the ponies sticking out last night from the pic
dd loved it
look at the pictures in 50 easy party cakes

I used to make 2Thomas" caskes for ds - with the appropriate engine for the year of his birthday 9with the exception of the 1st one, which was doen for his second birthday, when I did Thomas himself). can't remember now which one was No.5 - was it Henry?

Did it by making rectangular Nigella Lwason buttermilk cakes and then cutting them up inot smaller retanhgles and sandwching them together, becasue coating them with icing of the appropriate colur and using "writing icing" to do the fine detail smarties for the buffers and licquorice catherine wheels for the wheels, plus a wee bit of cotton wool for the steam.

Looked home made but impressive IYSWIM.

There is an American site called family fun which has great cake ideas. The sweets for decorations are obviously all American brands but you can usually find a UK equivalent without having to think too hard.