Cars

At the time, my son was just crazy about the movie figures in Cars. He watched a little of the movie, but he didn't really care about the film itself. The absolutely loved the Cars toys that we bought him though. In light of that, I decided to make this cake. We bought the cars on top new so that they would be clean and would be part of his gift. He would be able to play with them as soon as we cut the cake. I tried to figure out just what I wanted to do for a while before settling on this design. I had grander plans of doing a stadium with a track, but couldn't quite figure out how I would go about building exactly what I wanted. I also wanted to try using fondant for this cake so that I could get the flat track surface. I found a recipe for classic fondant and used it. I could have bought the fondant at the craft store, but making it was cheaper and probably tasted a little better than that boxed stuff.
I learned a few things from this experience. First, I hate the taste of classic fondant. It's almost waxy and isn't very good. Since then, I have found a better alternative. It's also a pain to mix and use. I finally got it rolled out and cut into the track shape. I "painted" the track with black cake dye. Using powdered dye, it gave the track a matte effect which looked more like a roadway. The rest of the cake was the standard butter cream icing. The "Laps Complete: 4" on the side was an addition that I made at the last minute. I thought it would be a cute way to indicate his age.