Coolest Lightening McQueen Birthday Cake

I made this Lightening McQueen Birthday Cake for a friend’s son as he’s really into the movie ‘Cars’. It was a big hit!

I used an oblong cake pan, cooked a moist chocolate cake (folding in whisked egg whites at the last minute for extra bounce) and cut a car shape out with a knife, reserving the trimmings to put a small roof on top, tail and wheels. Most of the cutting was achieved by looking at Google pictures of the ‘McQueen’ car, and a bit of shaping guess work.

The coating to smooth out the rough edges, is chocolate cream (a tub of whipping cream and a bar of dark chocolate broken in to pieces and heated bain marie style, whip to mix when melted, then leave in fridge overnight and whip again just before use.)

The lightening strikes, wheel trims and tyre coats are melted milk chocolate (melt chocolate and drip shapes onto greaseproof paper and leave in fridge to set).

The windscreen eyes are slices of marshmallow, with blue smarties (British version of M&M’s) pushed into cut outs in them, and the black dots are made from scooping out a circle from the centre of a dried blueberry, rolling it into a ball and squashing it onto the smartie (M&M type thing).

The exhaust pipes are marshmallows cut to size, dipped in melted milk chocolate, with white chocolate blobbed on the ends.

The number 3’s are melted white chocolate blobbed onto greaseproof paper in the shape of 3’s, and set in the fridge before adding to the cake.

To make the bits stick, I used extra melted chocolate as glue.

The smile is milk chocolate with marshmallow pieces cut for the teeth. Unfortunately my 2 year old managed to sink her hand into the front of the cake causing a messy gap!

The three candles went just in front of the tail.

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