Schalk's Lorry Cake

by Amanda
(Cape Town, South Africa)

I baked two plain square sponge cakes four days before and froze it. I also coloured the fondant icing the night before I used it and stored it in the fridge. The evening before my son's birthday party I started to build and ice the lorry cake. I cut up the frozen cakes and built the lorry to what I thought it should look like, sticking the different parts together with plain butter icing (no toothpicks), and also covering the cake with butter icing as I went along.

I then rolled out the yellow icing and covered the cab of the lorry first after which I covered the bed of the lorry. I then rolled out the blue fondant and covered the container of the lorry. Only after this did I stick the container onto the bed of the lorry with butter icing.
The rest of the finer decorating came afterwards. I painted the windows with silver powder after initially getting the advice that I should mix it to a paste with a little vodka. This apparently makes the application more even and dries quicker, but seeing that it is a kiddies birthday party, I skipped on that advice for now. The wheels were chocolate biscuits.
Apart from the number 1 birthday cake from last year which I covered with green butter icing, this was a first for me and I had great fun! I?ll definitely try something similar next year...