Coolest Thomas and Friends 2nd Birthday Cake

My name is Amy and I am an in-home baker that makes/sells cakes in my spare time. I have a full-time job and 2 kids; plus I commute 160 miles round trip 5 days a week to work. Needless to say I am very busy already, but I do find time for my cakes. They started out as a hobby and turned into a way to make a little extra income on the side.

About 80 percent of my skill is self-taught ( I took 2 rounds of Wilton cake decorating classes), although I would LOVE to take some real classes one day. I previously submitted a rainbow Hello Kitty cake and will be submitting this cake along with one more today. I try to only submit cakes that are original designs and not ones that are heavily influenced by the pictures of other artist’s cakes my clients bring in. I consider my cakes art work and I try to respect other’s work because of this reason.

The cake I am presenting today is inspired by Thomas the train. It features a good bit of hand cut fondant decorations including the trees, clouds, and hills. It also has two hand-made fondant rail road tracks. I also am especially proud of my fondant rocks I have been complimented on numerous cakes because of their realism. Of course the most and impressive (and most time consuming) part are the two hand sculpted Thomas characters. These are rice crispy with fondant over the top.

All the details are done in fondant and each of them took about 30 to 45 minutes to complete! I would say sculpting the faces of these characters and all the small details were the most challenging part of this cake.This cake took about 10 hours to complete at many different sittings. And that doesn’t include the 5 sketched out designs I drew and revised for my out of state client. This cake is one of my favorites I have done. I thought all the details turned out fairly well considering I am self-taught.

A great tip it took me awhile to learn is DON’T roll your fondant too thin for covering the cake! The thicker fondant holds its shape better and masks imperfections. I roll mine about 14cm or sometimes even slightly thicker, but anything under 14cm is tough and shows imperfections.

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