Parenting & New Baby Advice Blog

Archive for July, 2010

As with all my cake posts, I'm drooling by the time I finish my research!  Luckily, my husband's birthday was earlier this week so I was able to indulge in a little cake, although it wasn't quite as inspiring as the cakes shown below.  All photos were found on www.flickr.com

The adorable creation shown in the top left is displayed by mandott on Flickr.  The two layer design features a railroad track piped on the cake plate and a train pieced together with fondant chugging around the bottom layer.  The top layer has fondant mountains and the topper is a railroad crossing sign.

The top center photo is a colorful train engine created by bo_n_arro.  The cake was cut and pieced together, then skillfully iced with buttercream.  Although it was time consuming to achieve the texture seen on the cake, the end result was worth the effort!

There are many ways to add a train to your shower cake, as seen on the top right cake made by sharoncakes.  The fancy 2 layer cake has colorful fondant accents, topped with a cardboard train that is decorated with icing.

The bottom cake shown above is my favorite train cake because of the shape, color and display!  The display board was simply decorated by cakeboxsoc with green icing and small, simple flowers along with a curved train track created out of icing.  The train itself was covered in brightly colored fondant, then small details were added with colored icing.  Although the design is not the most complex of the cakes shown here, it's still a successful creation.

The center cake in the collage shown above is a simple sheet cake, iced with a small train design in the center.  The train was modeled after the one on the tableware that was used at Linda's Kitchen's shower.

The top design in the second collage is a large train piece baked and frosted by bluecakecompany.  The large pieces were frosted and decorated with buttercream and fondant.  I especially love the gum paste babies that were along for the train ride!

The bottom left cake was made with cakes baked in a loaf pan, then cut, iced and decorated with cookies, graham cracker bears and candy pieces.  The tracks were made out of popsickle sticks and a toy conductor is perched alongside.  This cake was made by amanda p. wu, and I found a great instructional video illustrating how to make a cake similar to this - sponsored by the Betty Crocker Kitchens and Howdini.com.

The final cake in this post is a professionally decorated piece with zebra stripes and jungle animals riding inside the train cars.  I love the detailed fondant work done by Pacific Pastries.  She actually created the circus train out of rice krispy treats because they are easier to mold into shape than cake. I would love having any of these as a baby gift if I were a newborn!!

More fun cake ideas:

• Theme Baby Shower Cakes
• Theme Baby Shower Cakes II

It's always fun to have little gifts to hand out to your baby shower guests.  Whether they win it playing a game or you give them out at the end of the shower, make sure to have some matching favors that will highlight your train baby shower!

One suggestion is the beautiful crystal train shown here.  Each multi-faceted lead crystal design glimmers in the sunlight and makes a great decoration or paperweight.  My husband loves to buy me lead crystal favors because of the way they reflect light and create rainbows for my boys to chase around the house!  We also have train-themed candles to decorate your tables or to send home with each guest.

You may want to bake train shaped cookies for dessert at your shower, you can either use cookie cutters as a guest favor, or decorate and package each cookie to send home as a tasty guest favor itself!  Edible favors are always a hit, you can purchase a colored favor box, fill it with the mother-to-be's favorite candy and finish it with a personalized train-themed sticker.  Create your own sticker at Zazzle.com for as little as $.32 each.

More Baby Shower Ideas:

• Top 5 Baby Girl Shower Themes
• Top 5 Baby Boy Shower Themes