Henry Cake

John is turning 3 tomorrow and we had a party for him on Sunday since my parents were in town. Since John is obsessed with Thomas the train I decided to make his birthday cake look like Henry. For those of you who wonder why Henry and not Thomas, it is because Henry is the #3 train.

John wanted to help make the cake. He loves to help and gets really upset if you don't let him help. My sister in-law Andrina has a very creative way of letting her daughter Eva help. Andrina puts some of the dry ingredients in a separate bowl and gives Eva a spoon to mix it all together. I thought that was a great idea, but when I tried that with John he just looked at me like I was stupid and asked where the eggs and milk where.



This is John's favorite part.


The 'before' pictures of the cakes. I made the white cake from scratch and the chocolate cake is just a dark chocolate mix. I will never use a mix again for cakes like these because they are very hard to cut and frost.


The first layer


This was John's way of "helping". We had to keep him from sneaking pieces of cake. I left the room for a second once to get something from the kitchen and when I came back there was a little chunk taken out of the chocolate cake.




Again, John's favorite part.


The cake is now layered and cut, all I have to do now is make it look like Henry.


I used buttercream frosting. The first cake I made I used a whipped frosting and while I like the taste of that it is really hard to frost with several different colors since it never hardens. I also liked how the buttercream produced richer colors.




It's Henry! This was not what I envisioned the cake to look like, but to be fair to myself this is only my second cake and I think I envisioned something that was more 3D covered in fondant...maybe next time.

I think this is my new hobby. I still have lots to learn, but am anxious to take a few decorating classes and learn some useful techniques. I also have to kinks to work out as far as the cake itself, what you can't tell from this picture is that poor Henry sinks a little in the middle...high altitude baking has proven to be quite a challenge for me.