Thomas The Tank Engine Cake

A friend of mine Shae always make these amazing cakes, which I would go 'Wow'. She doesn't only make the usual round and square cakes, she also does character cakes, and novelty cakes. Oh yes, she also made my wedding cake! I remember one year for my birthday she made me a santa claus character cake (because my birthday is close to xmas, and she knew that I didn't like combining my birthday with xmas and get one less pressi, so she did this especially to pay me out! Thanks Shae!! =P) But anyway, the cake was amazing, and the best bit was when she beheaded the santa claus! Everyone just went 'Ouchhhhh...'

Making a character or novelty cake never really crossed my mind, because it looks hard and didn't think that I could cope with the hard work and detail. Recently a friend of mine asked me to make a Thomas The Tank Engine Cake for her son's 5 year old birthday. At that very minute, I was stunned... 'uhhhhhh.... that's a bit of a challenge!!!' Once, I made a cake in the shape of the number '1' covered with butter icing, and I already had difficulty, and this time I was asked to do Mr. Thomas?!?! I didn't really want to say 'no' because deep down I really wanted to try, but on the other hand, I knew that I had no idea how to make it, and didn't want to ruin little Jeff's birthday by giving him a cake that doesn't look like Thomas! After a few days of consideration I said 'yes' and at the same time, started to research and seek help from my dear friend Shae!

Lucky that Mr. Thomas is a well known character and all kids love him, and therefore a lot of people out there have made a Thomas cake before, and I could find references and hints and tips easily! To be honest, I have never iced a cake before using white icing, not to mention about colouring the white icing!!! And I took up this task of making Mr. Thomas, I started to panic!

I went to my cake guru Shae for help, and asked her for a verbal crash course! And lucky that she told me that I can never use the gel colouring to get the rich black and red, otherwise I would be standing there the whole night putting the whole bottle of black colouring into the sugarpaste! And she was generous enough to give me some of her spare black and red icing, so I didn't have to go and buy a whole block! Thanks Shae.

I started making the cake 2 nights before, and once the cake was out of the oven, I was relieved, cos at least the cake turned out well! The cake needed 1.5 hour to bake, so while it was in the oven, I started to colour the icing (apparently I had to colour it one night before the assembling because the colour tends to darken over night!) Got out my rolling pin, toothpick for dipping the colour, ready to roll icing and icing sugar... all set and ready to knead! I was very cautious in how much colour I put in, because I knew that there was no turn around! And at the end, it wasn't as hard as I thought! First night gone, and everything seemed good, and ready for tomorrow's cake building!

Second night, I looked at all the cakes and coloured icing on the kitchen bench, took a deep breath and started slicing the cake into blocks!!! I had the knife in my hand and I was so scared, because I wouldn't have a clue how to fix it if I sliced it wrong! Lucky my dear hubby was by my side THE WHOLE NITE in the kitchen helping me!!!!!! Very sweet indeed, I don't remember there was one time that he helped me out in making a cake in our 7.5 years together! So this time he gave me a very BIG encouragement! Big hug from me!

I really took my time in cutting the cake, rolling the icing, and moulding it on top of the cake because again I didn't want to make any mistake. It's true that Shae told me it's not that hard, it's just like making a sculpture in art classes!

I must say, it does take a lot of effort in making the Thomas The Tank Engine Cake, but I really really did enjoy it! It was great fun! I think I'll do it again if someone ask me to! After making this cake, I totally understand why the novelty cakes and wedding cakes charge such a high price!!!

Sorry guys, I didn't take any 'step-by-step' photos for Mr. Thomas, because I really had to concentrate in each step, and didn't want to take my attention away!

Happy Birthday Jeffrey!!!

And big thank you to Shae and my hubby!