no-bake train cake

Serves:

6 - 8

Skill:

Easy

Cost:

Cheap

Prep:

1 Hr

This no-bake train cake is so easy to assemble from shop-bought cakes and biscuits – its the perfect birthday cake cheat. Taming Twins blogger Sarah Barnes uses ready-made cake and biscuits, which is perfect if you’re looking for a quick and simple cake idea for your little one’s birthday. The train is made from chocolate Swiss roll and Mini Rolls with Jammie Dodger wheels and sweetie cargo. Your child’s face will light up when they see this delicious train cake in all its glory. This cake will take around 1hr to assemble. Store in an airtight container until you’re ready to serve it. You can fill the train’s carriages with your child’s favourite sweets and chocolates. Leftovers can be stored in a cake tin for up to 2 days or wrapped in tin foil and kept in the fridge. The kids are going to love it!

Ingredients

• a large cake board/drum (or a kitchen tray, covered in tin foil)
• 100g desiccated coconut
• few drops green liquid food colouring
• 400g readymade buttercream icing
• 130g pack Matchmaker chocolates
• 114g pack chocolate fingers
• 2 chocolate Swiss rolls
• 4 Jammie Dodger biscuits
• 2 liquorice whirls
• 4 Mini Rolls
• 1 tube Smarties
• 1 small bag Jelly beans
• 1 small bag Iced Gem biscuits

Method

• Put the coconut in a bowl and add green food colouring, starting with just a few drops. Stir it in, adding more colouring a few drops at a time, until it reaches the desired shade of green to make ‘grass’.
• Spread the cake board with a thin layer of the buttercream icing and sprinkle the coloured coconut evenly over this. Press down lightly with your hands to stick it on.
• Next, position matchmakers to form the train tracks. Use a little buttercream to stick them down. Top these with chocolate fingers to form the cross pieces of the track. Use a little buttercream to stick them down.
• Now trim a piece, about 10cm long, from the end of your first Swiss roll. Put the remaining longest piece onto the tracks as the train engine.
• Stick the 10cm leftover piece of Swiss roll on top of the engine using buttercream to secure it. (You can trim a little bit off of the underside in a curve shape to make it sit better if you like).
• Use buttercream to attach a liquorice whirl to the top of this piece and another to the front of the engine.
• Add the 4 Jammie Dodgers to the engine, using buttercream, to form wheels.
• Take the second Swiss roll and cut it in half, slice the top off of each of these sections of Swiss roll to form the cars.
• Sit 2 Mini Rolls on top of the tracks behind the engine, and top with one of the half Swiss roll sections. Spread the top with buttercream and top with Smarties.
• Behind this, sit the remaining two mini rolls, with the last piece of Swiss roll on top. Add buttercream and jelly bean ‘freight’.
• Add some Iced Gems to the ‘grass’ like flowers.

More Recipe Ideas

Sheep cake

by Penny Flanagan

If your little one loves barnyard animals, this cute sheep cake is an easy fix for a birthday party. Just add marshmallows!

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prep: 0:20 | cook 0:45

ingredients

• 2 packet vanilla cake mix
• 2 quantity buttercream icing
• 1/2 cup white marshmallows
• 1 cup mini marshmallows
• 1 tbs jelly crystals (strawberry)
• 1 tube black writing icing
• 1 jelly beans (pink)
• 2 dark chocolate chips

method

1. Make your two cakes according to the packet instructions. If you are making one big and one small, divide the double quantity of batter accordingly between the cake tins.
2. Let the cakes cool completely. Remove them from their tins and cut the domed top off each one to create a flat even surface to work with. Now turn each one upside down, so that the bottom is the top. This will be easier to ice.
3. Make a double quantity of white buttercream icing.
4. Print out the template twice and cut a head and body shape from each. Lay the head template onto the smaller cake, secure it with toothpicks to keep it in place while you cut. Now use a sharp knife to cut around the template.
5. Lay the body template onto the larger cake and do the same as above.
6. Spread the body and head shaped cakes with a thin layer of icing all over. This is the crumb coat and will act as an undercoat for the top layer of icing. Put the cakes in the fridge for 30 minutes so that the crumb coat can set.
7. Remove the cakes from the fridge and spread the underside of the head with icing. Place it on top of the body, just off centre, to create a double layered sheep shape.
8. Now complete the icing by adding a second, final layer of white buttercream icing all over the cake.
9. Add marshmallows around the edges of the sheep's head and all over the body. Squish two large marshmallows into elipse shapes. Spread each one with a thin layer of icing and dip into the jelly crystals to create the sheep's pink ears.
10. Use the pink jelly bean as a nose. Use the black writing icing to draw the mouth. Now you can either draw in eyes with the black writing icing or use two dark chocolate buttons.
11. Add liquorice sticks as legs and you're all done. Baaaaa!

Fairy cakes

These gorgeous pink fairy cupcakes are perfect for a little girl's birthday. This recipe makes 30, so it's enough to take to a whole classroom of hungry kids. Don't forget the teacher!

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prep: 0:30 | cook 0:25

ingredients

• 2 Betty Crocker Vanilla Cake Mix
• 6 eggs
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 2 cups water
Icing
• 500 g butter (softened)
• 6 cups soft icing mixture (sifted)
• 1 tsp strawberry essence
• 1/2 tsp pink food colouring
• 1/4 cup milk
• pink sprinkles

method

1. Preheat oven to 160°C fan-forced. Line 2 x 12-cup muffin trays with patty pans and place an additional 6 patty pans on a baking tray, set aside.
2. In a bowl, place cake mixes, eggs, oil and water. Use a mixer on low speed until ingredients are just combined, then on high speed for 3 minutes.
3. Place 1/4 cup measures of cake mix into each patty pan and bake for 25 minutes. Leave to cool in the trays for 5 minutes and then transfer to a wire rack to cool further.
4. Meanwhile, make the Icing: Using a mixer, beat butter until it is very pale and fluffy; this may take up to 5 minutes. Gradually add the soft icing mixture, beating well between additions.
5. Add the strawberry essence and a few drops of food colouring until you have the desired colour. Beat on high for 3 minutes until well combined. Add the milk a little at a time until the icing becomes "puffy".
6. To ice the cooled cupcakes, use a piping bag with a very wide nozzle and pipe the icing in a round swirl starting from the outer rim of the cupcake toward the middle, lifting the nozzle from the centre quickly to make a peak. Sprinkle with Fairy Dust sprinkles.

Easy Spiderman cake

by Penny Flanagan

This impressive Spiderman cake is an easy last-minute fix for the time-poor mum, right down to the one pan chocolate cake base.

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prep: 0:20 | cook 0:35

ingredients

• 1 chocolate cake
• 1 1/2 quantity buttercream icing
• 1 blue gel food colouring
• 4 fresh strawberries
• 1 tube black writing icing
• 1 tube white writing icing

method

1. If you have made your own cake, let it cool before you start icing it. While you're waiting, make one and a half quantities of buttercream icing (see link in notes below.)
2. Once you have made the buttercream icing, reserve one third of the icing (white) for the crumb coat.
3. Colour the remaining 2/3 icing blue, using the blue food colouring.
4. Spread a thin layer of white icing over the cake to form the crumb coat. This is like an undercoat and it will help to achieve a nice smooth layer for your main layer of blue icing.
5. Refrigerate the crumb coated cake for 30 minutes or until set.
6. Now spread the blue icing over the top of the crumb coat. Use a large heated palette knife to get a smooth finish. You can heat the palette knife by dipping it in hot water and wiping it dry before using it to smooth out the icing.
7. Refrigerate the cake again, until the blue layer is set. (About 30 minutes)
8. Make some strawberry Spiderman heads. Cut each strawberry in half and use black writing icing to draw the outlines of the eyes. Fill in the eyes using white writing icing. The easiest way to apply the white centres is to squeeze a small blob in place, then spread it into the eye shape using a toothpick.
9. Depending on how big your cake is, you will need 8 - 10 Spiderman faces. Once you have them mark out where you are going to put them around the edge of the cake using a toothpick.
10. You will need to hold the strawberries in place using toothpicks. Trim each toothpick so that only a small section pokes up out of the cake. (I had to trim about 1cm off each toothpick.) Spike each strawberry face onto the toothpick in the places you marked around the edge of the cake. (You can try using icing to stick the strawberries down, but I found that they just slid off, hence my gruesome 'head spiking' method.)
11. Use icing to stick your Spiderman figurine to the centre of the cake. All done! Best. Mum. Ever!