Coolest Thomas the Tank Engine Cake Photos and Ideas

My son Theo loves trains in general and Thomas the tank engine in particular. So I decided to prepare a Thomas the tank engine cake for his 4th birthday. This train cake is a plain butter cake with chocolate chunks that I made for the engine and carriage. I tried to incorporate ideas of train cakes I saw at different website I found.

I covered the engine with white frosting colored with blue food color. The carriages were covered with melted milk chocolate (Nestle dessert milk chocolate). I printed out a picture of Thomas’s face put transparent adhesive tape on each side and cut it out.

I used Cadburys chocolate fingers biscuits and other French chocolate biscuits sold in France for wheels. I added a lot of sweets like Smarties and from Haribo and Look o look brands for windows and carriages .The chimney was a chocolate molding from last Christmas.

Coolest Thomas the Tank Engine Cake Ideas

Thomas the Tank Engine Cake by Mendy M., Richmond, MO

I made this Thomas the tank engine cake for my son Thomas’ 2nd birthday. I picked different ideas from pictures of train cakes I found on the internet. I used store bought pound cakes for the cars that I cut for the shapes I wanted.

The decorating, mixing and frosting the cakes were very time consuming. I estimate I spent 4-5 hours from start to finish. I used licorice for the tracks, crushed Oreos for coal, Twix candy bars for the log car. I used face photos for the caboose of the kids at the party.

I ended up using a Thomas toy flashlight for the engine due to time restrains, but the flashlight then became a birthday gift which was a great hit!

Thomas the Tank Engine Cake by Erin M., Orono, ME

I was asked to make a birthday cake for a 4 year old who loves trains (especially Thomas and the Polar Express) so I made him the Thomas the tank engine cake. I used a picture from a coloring book for the template.

I taped it to a piece of cardboard and then covered that with parchment paper. Then all I did was trace the Thomas picture with clear piping gel and then flip it onto the iced cake. Trace with the correct colors and you have a beautiful birthday cake!

Thomas the Tank Engine Cake by Angi B., Camby, IN

I made this Thomas the tank engine cake for a friend’s little boy. It was for his 2nd birthday and he loves Thomas the Train. The little conductor is a 3-D cake.

I used 2 cake mixes for him. I decorated with butter cream icing.

For the cars on the train I baked a 9×13 cake and cut it into rectangles and stacked some of them together to get different size cars. For the engine I used the Wilton 3-D train pan.

I added Wilton Circus animals to the tops of the cars and for the “windows” of the engine I used candies.

Thomas the Tank Engine Cake by Lynn F., Warwick, RI

I threw a Thomas train birthday party for my then 2 year old son last year. I saw your website and came up with my own design for a Thomas the tank engine cake.

I made a sheet cake in a 9×13 pan (can be a box or from scratch). Frosted it green (food coloring to white can frosting) for the grass and then put kit kat bars for the railroad ties and mini nonpareils for the rocks with chocolate twirlers for the rails.

I bought the Thomas birthday trains (comes with 2) and placed them on top of the tracks. I printed a railroad crossing sign clip art and stuck it on a straw into the cake. It was pretty easy to make and everyone was impressed. My son of course loved it.

Thomas the Tank Engine Cake by Torri S., Findlay, OH

To make this Thomas the tank engine cake I made a basic two layer cake and frosted it white. I use the basket weave tip to make the tracks and put a real wooden Thomas on the tracks. I put a little wax paper under the train so the frosting wouldn’t get stuck in the wheels.

Thomas the Tank Engine Cake by Jennifer R., Herndon, VA

I made this Thomas the tank engine cake for a three year old train lover that I take care of. The engine is one cake mix split into an 8×8 square pan and a tall can of spaghetti sauce lined with wax paper filled 2/3 full. (I also made the milk car can in this batch with a can of progresso soup.)

I cut the square in half to make the base with one half as the base and the other stacked to make the back. I should have put a thick coating of icing to hold the back on but I didn’t and it fell off. The icing is just store-bought with food coloring and extra powdered sugar to dry it out.

The eyes are gum balls. The smoke stack is two mini Twix bars frosted together. The smoke is three mini marshmallows. The first two are on a skewer used to hold the stack up and the third is held on with frosting to make it look like the train is moving. The other cars are one cake mix split in the same 8×8 pan and a loaf pan. The coal is crushed “Famous Chocolate Wafers” also used whole for the wheels. The gravel is animal crackers. The track is chocolate twizzlers and keebler chocolate covered wafer cookies stuck on with frosting. The couplings are praline cookies. The kids loved the Thomas the tank engine cake!

Thomas the Tank Engine Cake by Jodie H., Laurel, MD

This Thomas the Tank Engine cake was for my nephew’s 3rd birthday party. I got the idea for this cake from other photos from this website.

I used the Wilton’s Choo-Choo train cake mold for Thomas and a sheet cake for the other train carts. I cut them all to the desired shapes. I found a wonderful homemade marshmallow fondant recipe, dyed it gray with a little bit of black food coloring and molded it into Thomas’s face.

I used a #16 star Wilton’s tip and a variety of icing colors to decorate all the train carts. Oreo cookies were used for Thomas’ wheels and mini Oreo’s for the train carts. Chips Ahoy chocolate covered cookie sticks, chocolate Twizzlers and Rice Krispies cereal were all used for the tracks and gravel.

The grass in the center was coconut with a little green food coloring.

Finally I used a variety of candies and pretzels to decorate and fill the carts as well as a few non-edible toys. I pretty much used my imagination. It turned out great!

Thomas the Tank Engine Cake by Debi S., Murfreesboro, TN

This Thomas the Tank Engine cake was for our son George who turned two.

We convinced ourselves we could make a Thomas the Tank Engine cake after finding this site and seeing all the great ideas. We made the cars using pound cake in loaf pans and cut to shape accordingly. We cut a wedge length-wise out of one and filled with candies. Another we cut top off for a flatbed and loaded with animals and used straws and red shoestring licorice for rails.

The engine was a little more work. We cut the top off of one loaf pan and cut the trimmed down the top into two short rectangles and stood on end side by side for engine cab. The round steam tank was baked in a parchment lined fruit can. But careful it cook out the top a lot! We covered the tank and the cab top with melted baking chocolate for a dark appearance.

The faces and wheels were made from pre-made gum paste found at the local hobby/cake decorating store. We colored the gum paste with gel icing colors. The cars were assembled on small risers made from 1/4” luan sandply on four strategically placed wood blocks. To be hidden later by the wheels.

The train track was assembled on a plywood board. Ties from nutty bars, rails from black licorice, ballast out of rice krispies in corn syrup, and the grass was coconut flakes colored with green food coloring.

Oh yea, all of the brilliant colored icings were homemade buttercream using gel tints.

Thomas the Tank Engine Cake by Mandy E., Houston, TX

I made this Thomas the Tank Engine cake for a friend’s son’s birthday. To make Thomas I used a large baking pan (half-sheet) and a small round pan (6-inch). It’s iced with my buttercream frosting and decorated with a few Oreos and a couple of junior mints for the eyes. I think this was one of the easier cakes I’ve done but it’s one of my favorites.

Thomas the Tank Engine Cake by Michelle G., London, England

This Thomas the Tank Engine cake was made for an obsessive two year old! This was cut out of a few rectangular Madeira cakes, which were frozen to make them easier to cut into shapes! Plenty of blue fondant and piped to look like Edward from Thomas the tank engine number 2 of course!

Thomas the Tank Engine Cake by Lindsay C., Tampa, FL

I got the idea for a Thomas the tank cake from this website. I saw a cake someone else also made from Debbie Brown’s character cakes. I used the sponge cake recipe from the book. The book is no longer in print but I was able to order it off of Amazon for a decent price. It was difficult gathering materials for the cake since I have never worked with fondant. But I actually emailed the author of the book Debbie Brown and she emailed me back and answered all of my questions. She was very helpful.

The cake took me about six hours to make and it was quite the task. But I was very happy with the outcome.

I also made another two layered 13 X 9 cake with the star tip frosting since the Thomas the Tank cake wasn’t enough to feed the 40 people I had at the party.

After I got the cake baked and let it sit in an air tight container overnight. I covered it with the fondant that I had to dye myself. I used a tylose powder with water that I had sit over night as well for the sugar glue which glued all the parts to the train. The tricky part was getting the main blue piece over the entire cake as well as gluing all the pieces on. With the bright colors such as black and red it tended to bleed onto the blue. I made a huge mess in my kitchen but it was a lot of fun.

Coolest Thomas the Tank Engine Cake Ideas

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