I made this Handy Manny toolbox and tools for my son’s 4th Birthday party. The toolbox is 3 layers of 9X13 cakes. I cut out a small square about 1 layer thick for the tools.
For the sides I made a square of rice cereal treats and cut it into two triangles. The handle is the plastic blower part of 3 Handy Manny party blowers. This worked great because I put them inside each other and then could slide them to adjust the size.
I learned the hard way the night before the party that regular red food coloring makes hot pink frosting and not red. Luckily I made it to Michael’s before they closed and picked up Wilton’s no taste red and Christmas red icing dye. For 3 canisters of icing I used 2 no taste red and 1 red container. I’m pretty sure I used too much dye trying to get the red darker and it did affect the taste because I used the Christmas red, but I didn’t care because it looked great.
One tip to get a smoother look is to put the cake in the fridge after it is frosted and once it sets, pat the frosting carefully to smooth it out. The tools were sugar cookies. I made a template of the tools on paper and used a knife to cut them out. I iced them with Wilton’s cookie icing. I had to mix the colors to get the right shades. The eyes were edible candy eyes. I froze the cookies after they were iced in order to make sure they were as stable as possible when I put them on the cake. It worked great and the homemade Handy Manny cake was a hit!
Thank-you so much for the idea of making the tools out of cookies. I was ok with the idea of the tool box but had no idea how to do the tools. Thank you thank you thank you :D
Great tip about the cookies!!!!….I am planning for my son’s 4th and this is a great idea!!!!..thank you