Lightning McQueen

I was asked to make a birthday cake for a little boy turning 2 who loves Lightening McQueen.

I decided on a Neapolitan cake. Chocolate, white and strawberry cake with alternating layers of strawberry jam and chocolate ganache as my fillings.

After crumbcoating, I put the cake in the freezer for about 1 hour. I wanted it to be very firm before I started carving it. This was a huge cake, with all the layers and fillings it was almost 7 inches tall. It was very heavy and I was concerned about it breaking the rack in my freezer, so I put some cake pans under the rack to help hold up the cake.

Time to carve!  I made the cake this size because I wanted to start with a large amount of cake and slowly take off a little here and there.  I started on the side and drew with my knife,  an outline of what I thought the car should look like.

All this carving left a lot of scraps for the hubby!

After icing, the cake went back into the fridge. I then started rolling out a pice of white fondant that I was going to put under the red fondant.

This enables me to make my windows by cutting out the red, revealing the white underneath. It gives it a more natural and I think cleaner look.

After adding a generous amount of tylose to some fondant, I shaped the spoiler and attached it to the back with toothpicks.

Time for his smile and eyes.

I cut out the wheels with a circle cutter.

To make the spokes in the wheel, I used the end of a rose tip.

A few years ago, I bought a laminator from Wal-Mart and it’s been one of the best tools in my cake decorating hobby. I made 2 templates. One being Lightening McQueen’s trademark lightning bolts on the sides of his car and the Rusteeze log on the top of cars hood.

I like to laminate things I need to cut out for a few reasons:

1. Laminating make the item sturdier. Less likely to tear when I cut around it.

2. Laminating keeps it clean. There’s always buttercream, airbrush colors, fondant, cornstarch or vodka in or near my work area. If my hands have food coloring on them and I go to pick up my template, I can just wipe off the template before it touches my fondant and I don’t have to worry about the item being soiled. If it gets wet, there’s no guarantee it will hold its shape when I’m cutting around it.

3. Laminating items is permanent. I just throw it into a folder just in case I may need to make another Lightening McQueen cake again!

Almost done!

I had heard that my local craft store carried these great little LED lights in the wedding section and they proved to work great as headlights!

You just twist the bottom of the light to activate it. They will stay lit for up to 8 hours.

I had so much fun making this cake and I heard the birthday boy enjoyed it as well.

 

Happy caking,

 

Kelly