I love birthday cakes that are EASY to make at home. This Thomas cake featuring the face of Thomas the tank engine fits that bill. Just before Monkey’s 3rd birthday he came home from daycare and announced to us that he was going to have a Train Party for his birthday. This was news to me, as we had not talked about his upcoming birthday at all.
He seemed pretty set on the idea and is a big fan of Thomas, and since I didn’t have any other plans I decided to take the Train Party theme and run with it. We all know that show stopper of any birthday party is the cake so I decided to create an easy Thomas The Train Cake!
I also have ideas for DIY Thomas The Train Party Decorations, How to make Thomas The Tank Engine Ride In Toys, and Other Thomas Party Ideas to make Birthday party planning easy and quick.
Thomas The Tank Engine Cake
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Do you have a little train lover that would go crazy over this cake? You can make it too, it is not that hard! You can decide what flavour of cake you like I used a mix of vanilla and chocolate cakes so that we would have a variety. I used different colors of buttercream icing for decorating, but you could also use red and blue fondant, with black fondant accents if you like. Here is what you need for a Thomas The Train Birthday Cake:
Thomas The Train Birthday Cake
Ingredients:
- 2 boxes of cake mix and required ingredients, you decide the flavour – I did 1 vanilla and 1 chocolate
- 1 tub of chocolate icing
- 2 tubs of vanilla icing
- Food colouring – black, blue and red. Or if you are like me you can cheat and buy the premade colours, that is what I did for the red and black.
How to make a Thomas The Train Birthday Cake
Step #1: Mix each box of cake mix according to the package directions. Remove 1 cup of batter and place in oiled 9 inch round pan. Pour remaining batter into oiled rectangle 11×13″ or 9×13″ pan whatever you have on hand.
Repeat for the second box of mix, this time add the 1 cup of batter to the same 9″ pan as the first, pour the remaining batter into oiled rectangle pan. You will end up with 2- rectangle pans and 1-9″ round pan.
Step #2: Bake as directed. Remove from oven and cool for 5 mins, run butter knife around the edges to loosen. Cool for another 10 mins then remove from plan and allow to cool completely.
Step #3: Arrange rectangle cakes on a cake board like this: The bottom half of the cake will be made of a base of the rectangle cakes place side by side. This will form the base of the train.
Step #4: Place the icing on the rectangle cakes where the round cake will be placed. This should be slightly offset towards the bottom of your Train Cake. The round cake will make the large Thomas face.
Step #5: Cut a 1.5″ strip off the top of your cake to create the smoke stack. I used 2 pieces of the strip side by side to create mine. Attach them with icing.
Step #6: Now it is time to start decorating your tank engine birthday cake! To make the grey for the face use a portion of the white icing and mix with a little bit of black food colouring. You can always add a little more if you want it darker, but it is much harder to lighten up. Cover the surface of the round cake with the grey icing
Step #7: I bought a tube of pre-made red icing, as I have had trouble getting a true red icing previously. To make the blue icing I mixed blue food colouring into white icing. Continue icing the rectangular cakes with white, blue and red icing as shown in this picture.
Step #8: To make the black icing – mix black food colouring into a portion of the CHOCOLATE icing. Use knife to spread the black icing on the sides of the round cake and smoke stack. Use a piping bag with a round or a star tip for the facial features and details.
Viola! A great cake for any birthday boy or girl who wants a themed birthday party featuring trains. If you need more cake for a larger crowd you could use green frosting to make a Percy Train Car as well.
An easy Thomas the Train Cake fit for any engineer! Hope you enjoy, and don’t forget to Pin this post so you can find it later.
Don’t forget to check out the video with step by step instructions to make this Thomas The Train Cake in this post too.
Happy Birthday Thomas The Tank Engine Party Ideas
Thomas The Tank Engine Birthday Party Decorations
Thomas the Train Game – Ride-In Engines
Thomas The Train Birthday Party Ideas
This post was originally published in July 2013
I love this! Great job! My daughter is also going to be 3 in a couple of weeks and she has requested a “Dora” birthday. I wish I was as creative as you and could figure out how to make a Dora cake! 🙂
WOW! Impressive! Well done, Mama!
My nephew loves Thomas the Train! He would be so excited to see this! I’ll have to show this to his mom.
Nicely done!
That’s a cool cake! Nice job.
That looks like it was professionally done!! It must have made his birthday!
So I am making this cake right now, but I’m not sure where to buy a cake board!
you can make a cake board…i just made one out of a cardboard box just cut the cardboard to desired size and cover it with wrapping paper or tissue paper. voila, cake board!
Love your cake, Kate!
My son’s second birthday party is Sunday and I am making this. So easy, and he loves Thomas! Thank you
Love your tutorial!
This is perfect for a new train post we will be adding to Kawartha Lakes Mums. Starting a new Trains Pinterest Board with your cake!
Most little boys that I know go through a phase of loving Thomas the Train.. This is a good time to make this birthday cake for them. They will absolutely love it. Thank you for the recipe and the directions for making it. I imagine many Moms will be baking this cake at some point.
What an adorable cake. My grandson would be over the moon with this, he’s a very big Thomas fan 🙂
Very nice! Our LO’s 3rd is in a couple of weeks – now I have a good idea of what we will do
Would I be able to use two 9×13 pans instead? I don’t have any 11x13s
Thank you for this Thomas cake plan. I’m going to make it for my little one’s birthday this weekend 🙂