Coolest Thomas Birthday Cake Photos and Ideas

My 2-year-old son is a big fan of Thomas the Tank Engine. So the mission was to create a Thomas birthday cake for his birthday. I got some guide and tips from a cake book by Debbie Brown that shows steps by steps how to make the Thomas birthday cake. I added additional items to it – the lollies, carriages, and windmill.

My little boy’s eyes shined when he saw his Thomas birthday cake and that made all the 10 hours of hard work worth it.

1) I baked a dense raisin cake and left it in the fridge for over 6 hours so I can cut and shape the cake better and easier.

2) Apply a layer of buttercream coat and leave it to dry for 30 minutes so the cream coat will harden slightly— to avoid cake crumbs sticking on your fondant.

3) I used ready-made fondant icing for convenience and invested on useful tools (modeling stick, embosser, stencil and cutters) that really helps in cake decorating.

4) Assemble all the parts together. I used colourful lollies, biscuits, and chocolate chips to do the finishing touches. I hope the above will help those Thomas fan’s mothers to create a wonderful Thomas birthday cake for their little loved one.

More Thomas Birthday Cake Ideas

Cake by Margie F., Charles Town, WV

This Thomas birthday cake was made from the Wilton train pan on top of 10-inch rounds. The bricks are painted on with different colored icing. The train friends are all different and made out of fondant. I hope that helps.

Cake by Michele N., Ft. Myers, FL

My son wanted a Thomas birthday cake. I love to be creative and this was the outcome. I was very proud.

I used a loaf pan, a 13×9 pan, and a soup can; then pieced them together.

The bottom was of course the 13×9 with about 1-inch cut off all around. The loaf cake was sliced in half, and then placed on top of each other for the cab and the soup can with some of the cut off from the large cake made Thomas boiler (as far as the soup can idea went, it worked great but I used to much batter and it overflowed).

Thomas’ face was a photocopy, which I cut out and stuck to the frosting. I shaped a piece of Tootsie roll for the funnel. I used cookies for the wheels and covered them in frosting so they would look more like Thomas’s blue wheels.

I didn’t have any frosting tips so I used Ziploc bags with one corner cut to frost the cake.

Next time, I will go out and buy the frosting tips and I am sure I will get a smoother look.

Hope you enjoy creating your own Thomas birthday cake!

Cake by Deana T., Santa Cruz, CA

We were inspired by the topper that you can purchase on certain Thomas the Tank Engine web sites. Instead of buying their cake my sister-in-law and I did it ourselves.

We made a standard sheet cake. Turned it upside down (to get the flat top we needed) and frosted it. The colors were achieved with food color gels. We used the melted chocolate for the tracks (comes in tubes at grocery store that you heat and then squirt like frosting tubes) and then we topped the cake with our son’s wooden Thomas train.

Cake by Rebekah M., Hampton, VA

Thanks to this website I was inspired to make this Thomas the tank engine cake for my son’s 3rd birthday. I constructed Thomas from one cake mix baked in a large Campbell’s soup can and 2 loaf pans. I used one loaf as the base, used a skewer to attach the cylinder part on and cut the other loaf pan into pieces for the cab and sides. I used a couple of lollypop sticks to help hold it together. I did have a few little pieces left over.

With frosting I filled in the gaps and tried to decorate it to look just like Thomas. For the face I frosted it white and used a toothpick dipped in black frosting to draw the features. The smokestack is a large marshmallow frosted black. I dipped Oreos in blue-tinted white chocolate for the wheels and further embellished with M&Ms. I put both Thomas and the cargo cars on top of Oreos to make them a little higher so the wheels would look like they’re supporting the train. Licorice was used for the tracks.

I frosted the cakes right there on top of the Oreos and put the tracks on afterwards. The two cargo cars were made from another cake mix baked in regular loaf pans. One is holding dark chocolate Raisinets for coal, the other is M&Ms.

The frosting recipe I used was very easy and made almost exactly the right amount. Cream, 1 cup shortening, and 1 cup softened butter for 10 minutes until very light and fluffy. Gradually add 7-8 cups powdered sugar mixing well. Add 1/2 t. salt, 2 t. vanilla, and 6 oz cream. Stir slowly until blended and then beat until fluffy. Tastes delicious and frosts well.

I baked the cakes the day before the party and on party-day I spent at least 5 hours making the frosting and putting everything together.

My son loved it and I sure hated cutting into that Thomas the tank engine cake! It was definitely fun though.

Cake by Clare W., Auckland, New Zealand

I made this Thomas birthday cake for a friend who’s little boy is Thomas mad. The train is made completely from solid pieces of fondant icing coloured blue, the details painted on with diluted food colouring afterwards. The wheels were made by imprinting the real Thomas’s wheels into the fondant (with a good wash and clean first I might add!).

The Thomas birthday cake itself was a round 9″ cake cut in half and stood on end. The track again was an imprint from the original Thomas track. The carriage was also again from orange coloured fondant cut into thick strips then ‘glued’ together with royal icing. I put the candles in the carriage after this picture was taken.

The first thing the little boy wanted to do was grab the train to play with!

Cake by Edna M., Beattyville, KY

This is a Thomas birthday cake made for my nephew Tanner’s second birthday (thus, the number 2 on Thomas’ side rather than a 1). I really wanted to use a Wilton novelty shaped Thomas pan for the cake, but they have been retired and are selling for ridiculous amounts, even on eBay; and after considerable thought about the number of guests at his party, the shaped pan would not be big enough.

So for my Thomas birthday cake I used a large sheet cake pan and used 2 cake mixes. The cake was then frosted white with buttercream icing. I freehanded the picture of Thomas using an image of the shaped pan liner found online, but you could use a coloring book or a coloring page downloaded from the internet. I then transferred the picture using the toothpick method of punching holes and connecting the dots.

The pattern was then outlined in black icing and filled in with stars. The borders were done in red and blue stars, and some yellow stars added for a little more pizzazz.

*A tip for making black icing is to start with chocolate icing and then add the black coloring; this way you do not have to use so much black, which can alter the taste of your icing.

Cake by Lori R., Mech, PA

I volunteered to make a Thomas birthday cake for a friend’s 4-year-old boy. He decided he wanted Thomas the Tank Engine. So I did some research and found some great ideas online.

I used three loaf pans and cut them into rectangles and squares to make the general shape of Thomas (with one dowel rod in back of the engine) and two small cars. I used store bought icing and food coloring and made a lot of blue icing. I used store bought cans (spray) yellow and red icing. The two small cars I just spread the icing on.

The engine I spread on a crumb layer first and then used a star tip to icing the second layer on Thomas. I used Oreo cookies, removed the center and piped icing on the wheels. I used a marshmallow for the smoke stack (toothpick to attach) and piped icing on it. Crushed Oreo was used on one of the cars.

I printed out a Thomas face and right before we served the Thomas birthday cake I stuck it on the front (saved me time and one less color of icing). Attach the paper to cardboard – that works best so the icing doesn’t go through the paper. I had fun creating this Thomas birthday cake and it really wasn’t that difficult :-).

Cake by Robin A., Ashland, KY

These were made for my grandson’s, Zane, 3rd birthday party. He’s a die-hard Thomas the Tank Engine fan and wanted a Thomas birthday cake. I used a Wilton “train” cake pan and a chocolate pound cake recipe (the easy one, where you add instant pudding to a cake mix). The icing is Wilton’s buttercream recipe.

I didn’t know how I would decorate the cupcakes, but after I made the train Thomas birthday cake and realized how easy it was to recreate Thomas’ face… bingo! I also made Thomas face cupcakes. Some more cupcakes, (no close-up picture) were train wheels with Thomas picks inserted in the center. This Thomas birthday cake and cupcakes were a huge hit! My grandson absolutely loved them.

Cake by Lizette C., Manassas Park, VA

For my son’s first birthday, I picked Thomas and friends as the theme. For the first Thomas birthday cake my friend and I made mocha cake for the base. The 3D Thomas birthday cake was made of Chocolate Kahlua cake. The frosting was butter with mocha flavoring.

We placed the cake in the middle of a Thomas the Train toy. For the second cake, it was also made of mocha with mocha-flavored icing. We just bought the train from the store and placed it on top of the cake. Then we decorated the sides and top of the Thomas birthday cake with tiny M&Ms.

Cake by Kim W., Brentwood, NH

For my sons 3rd birthday, I wanted to give him the world. I am due in a few weeks with his brother so I wanted it to be about him. Thomas the Train is the world to him, so I made him a Thomas birthday cake.

This was quite a project. I wanted to be sure that everyone at the party had a choice of cakes (I know some don’t like chocolate and so forth) so I made 5 loaf cakes, 2 chocolate, 1 vanilla and 2 rainbow vanilla. There are only 4 trains, but the extra loaf was used for the main engine, that takes more pieces.

The cabooses and freight car were simple; I used Oreos for the wheels and M&Ms for the center. The windows were Hershey Bars, the freight car I hollowed out and dumped frosting in and then a bag of M&Ms.

Thomas was the toughest, but so worth the effort. I followed a picture to be sure I had the right cuts. I used the 5th Loaf to cut the pieces. Remember to frost in between pieces for more stability. The smoke stack was a ice cream cone; use a toothpick or such to keep it in place. Steam was a pipe cleaner and mini marshmallows.

I got more compliments on this Thomas birthday cake that I could have imagined; everyone loved it, and loved the option to choose a flavor. My son was so happy. Just know, it is so hard to cut into it, after all that work. But my son’s smile was all that mattered.

Cake by Kerry G., Waikato, New Zealand