Birthday Cake

I don't claim to be a good cake decorator by any stretch of the imagination, but I do enjoy dabbling in it.  Something about being creative is such a release for me.  When the boy requested to have another Thomas the train themed birthday party this past year (he's a bit obsessed), I jumped at the chance to try my hand at making another cake for him.  Imagine my annoyance surprise afterword when I discovered that there is actually a legitimate Thomas the train cake pan!  Regardless, I still enjoyed making the cake and I was pretty happy with how it turned out.  Being a novice cake baker, I had no clue how many cups of batter one box of cake mix made, so I mixed up two.  There was extra batter left, so I used what was left to make cupcakes.  We were eating cake for a while after the birthday party!  One of these days I'll do cake batter from scratch, but when time is a premium, I don't feel bad using a mix.  The cake was baked 2 days before the party because that was when I had a chance to do so!  Decorating was done the morning of the party, which included mixing up the frosting.  After finding a good recipe for buttercream frosting, I won't buy the stuff in a can anymore...it just doesn't taste as good!  Not only that, but I can control the consistency of it better from scratch as well.

After the birthday party, I found and bought the actual Thomas cake pan.  I'm (not so) secretly hoping that the boy's obsession lasts another year so I can get some use out of it!