Train Cake

Tonight we are celebrating the birthdays of my sister in law, two brothers in law, and a nephew. (We'll celebrate three more birthdays in December. That's a ton of birthdays for this time of year. My mother in law got to the point where she was threatning to kidnap her children to her house for the months of March and April to prevent and more December birthdays from joining the family. LOL)

My nephew is turning three, and is becoming a train fanatic. It's a bit nostalgic for me, as M was a huge Thomas nut for years, and is just barely recovering from it.

I am charge of dessert, so I made an egg free, nut free train cake:

I realize it is definitely not professional quality, but I don't think you *CAN* get an allergen free cake from a bakery. At least not at a price I am willing to pay. I usually do my egg/nut free cakes from scratch, but I am still feeling tired from Thanksgiving, and used mixes. The engine is a funfetti cake, and the cars are chocolate. Instead of using eggs, I used 1/3 c. applesauce per egg (so I used 1 c. applesauce per mix, as each mix called for 3 eggs). I don't think it rose nearly as much, but it was pretty close. It also seemed wet. I don't know how it'll taste until I eat a piece tonight. Let's hope it tastes good.

I also took the lazy way out on Thomas' face. I did a Thomas cake for M, and the face was pretty much impossible to make look "right". So, I printed up a color picture of Thomas, cut out his face. Then, I "laminated" it using packing tape so that the butter in the frosting wouldn't leave grease marks on the face.