Construction Cake

My cute little Levi turned 4 this month!  He loves tractors and so we decided to do a tractor/construction theme.  He was so excited for it and his favorite part was the cake. I was excited it turned out so well! And let me tell you a secret…. it was soooo easy! And quick!  Don’t be scared if you haven’t made many cakes. I promise you can not mess this cake up. It’s a construction cake! It’s under construction so if you make a mistake it just adds character.

Levi loved the cake! He thought it was so cool and was excited to see his toy tractors on it. Of course I sanitized them beforehand. We bought these tractors quite a while ago at Walmart. This cake is super fun and cute but also very delicious! I used my favorite chocolate cake recipe along with my easy chocolate buttercream frosting. Then I used crushed up Oreos plus a touch of melted butter mixed in, for the dirt. It was fun putting the tractors on and scattering around the “dirt.”

Chocolate Cake (baked in a 9×13 pan)
Chocolate Frosting
Cake Board
Small tractors
Oreo Dirt (recipe follows)
Happy Birthday Sign

Oreo Dirt
20 Oreos (or a similar chocolate cookie)
3 tablespoons butter, melted

Finely crush the Oreos using a food processor or placing them in a large zip-lock bag and smashing them. Place the crumbs in a bowl and mix in the melted butter.

Instructions:
Before baking cake be sure to spray well with non-stick cooking spray so the cake doesn’t stick. Optional- Line the bottom with parchment paper to ensure it will come out cleanly. Once cake is baked and cooled carefully flip over onto the cake board. (Another note: it’s helpful to cover the cake board with something like foil so you can reuse it and it keeps a clean look.)  Cut off 1/3 of the cake and carefully move to a plate or back to the cake pan. (Alternately, you can cut this off before putting the cake on the cake board.

Frost the cake on the cake board. Then carefully place the 1/3 piece of cake on top of cake on the left side and frost it. Spread a small amount of frosting next to the right side of the cake.  (To help the Oreos crumbs stick.) Place some of the Oreo “dirt” on top of that area. Place tractors in desired areas.  Finish the cake by placing the rest of the Oreo “dirt” where desired. Have some fun!

To make the Happy Birthday Sign
There are various ways you can do this. I used my Silhouette Cameo but if you don’t have that you can be creative and just use Microsoft Word.  If you use Word, you can just  first print the black outline and words on yellow cardstock then cut out the squares. You can even just cut the two yellow squares and just draw the black outline and words using a black marker.

This is how I did it using my Cameo…Cut two squares out of yellow cardstock. To make the black outline: Copy and paste the square and make it slightly smaller. Place it inside the original square to make sure it is how you need it to be. Then copy and paste that square and make it very slightly smaller. Place that inside of the previous square. Then delete the outer square. Next turn the 2 squares together at a 45 degree angle and place your words inside. I used the font, Adobe Gothic Std B. Then go ahead and cut this using black vinyl. You can turn it all again to a square shape to save on vinyl. You could use black cardstock if you want, you’ll just be doing a lot of gluing and it might get tricky with the small letters. Place the vinyl on the yellow cardstock.

To put it all together, I taped the first yellow square on a cake pop stick. Then I used glue to secure the back yellow piece.

Lastly, place the sign on the cake.

Enjoy your fun construction cake!

–To read about the Construction Party click here!