I made this Excavator cake for my friend’s son’s 2nd B-Day….he loves “diggies”! The base of the machine is a 12×18 vanilla pound cake that I cut and carved into shape. I had a lot of help from my husband with the design after he informed me that me original drawing was “all wrong”!
The arm is Rice Krispie Treats molded around dowel rods. The dirt hill is a chocolate cake baked in my large pampered chef batter bowl that I torted and filled with buttercream. The whole cake is iced in buttercream.
This was a huge hit. I only wish that my icing was a little more smooth on the arm. I had trouble getting it nice and smooth over the Rice Krispies. At the party, I added crushed Oreo cookies to the dirt hill for added effect.
Related cakes:
Coolest Monster Truck Jam Cake 
20+ Coolest Train Cake Ideas to Inspire Your Birthday Cake Decorating 
Sweet Hot Air Balloon Cake for Baby’s 1st Birthday 
Coolest Choo Choo Train Birthday Cake 162 
Coolest Fire Truck Birthday Cake 
Coolest Grave Digger Truck Cake 
Awesome Homemade U.S. Army Tank Cake 
Coolest Excavator Cake Idea
Hi … I think your cake is amazing. My little boy loves “digs” and would love to make it for his second birthday. Would you be able to tell me how you made it?
Kyles
I too would absolutely love to make this cake as well. My son will be turning two on the 14th of February and he loves “MONSTER MACHINES!” so if you could, will you tell me how you made this trippy cake please! Thank you and hopefully talk to you soon!!
I am making this right now. This is adorable. If you would like, please send me more directions. This is too fun for my two year old!
I think your cake is wonderful!!! and I mean it!!! My son thinks anything that drives and sounds loud, and moves dirt is the most wonderful thing ever :). Anyway, his 3rd birthday is coming up in December and I would like to try this cake out to see if I can make it look close to as good as yours. Could you please give me more directions? I would very much appreciate any help. And thank you again. HK
This is the coolest and I have been asked to do this for my brother’s 60th birthday end of this month. I thought I better check out if anyone had ever made a cake like this. Please can you let me know what you made the tracks out of and how you assembled the arms. It looks just great and will give it a go. Any tips would be much appreciated.
Thanks Helen
My son is turning 3 on June 6 and wants an excavator cake. I’d like some more details.
You wrote that the base of the machine was a pound cake, was the rest of the machine a pound cake as well? How did you get the nice yellow color and gray and black?
I know I sound pretty dumb and I guess i am kinda when it comes to making cakes. It’s kinda one of those things I am trying to learn how to do now that I am a mom. Hope to hear from you soon. Thanks!
I’m told (haven’t tried it yet) to get a smooth icing finish you icing your cake then use a piece of saran wrap to make it smooth. I’ll be trying this technique myself in the next month.
You did a beautiful job!
That is a very cool cake!My 3 year old would drop dead if I made this for him! He LOVES excavators!!
My son will be three on Sunday and I’m going to give this cake a go. I’m not very good at making cakes, so might cheat and purchase a pre-made cake, but I can decorate them fairly well.
I just hope I get the ‘design’ right. Yours looks fabulous, right down to the ‘dirt’ hill.
Thank you for putting this online. Fingers crossed mine will turn out as well as yours.
Great Job! My son turns 4 on Sunday and has specifically requested an excavator cake this year. Last year it was a backhoe, the previous year it was just “general” construction vehicles. I am excited to see this post and hope mine turns out half as nice.
Thanks for the picture and ideas. I attempted this for my son’s 5th birthday and he absolutely loved it. It took me quite a while to make, I spent one day baking and assembling the cake and the next decorating it. I didn’t have the right size cake pans so I had to make due with what I had. I used 9 x 13 pans and just used regular chocolat and white cake mix. It was a slightly smaller version of yours but I still had to use 3 cake mixs for the entire cake, and rice krispies for the arm. The icing wasn’t too smooth but I think it turned out fairly well for my first attempted at a shaped cake.
The look on my son’s face was totally worth it!!