My little boy turned two on Friday! He is 100% smitten by trucks– he is fascinated by any vehicles, really, but his true love is for trucks specifically.
When Husband and I started discussing cake ideas for his birthday, we did a quick Pinterest search for “truck cakes.” I’d seen many construction site cakes before, but seeing the different variations on Pinterest made me realize that this really was the kind of cake design that would really appeal to my little boy.
We took inspiration from a few cakes in particular (This one, and this one, which isn’t attributed properly, unfortunately.) The first one was particularly intriguing, because of the inside!!
But first, some photos of the outside:
We first spotted those mini construction vehicles on Amazon, but soon discovered that they are significantly less expensive (for five trucks rather than four, even!) at Toys R Us and Walmart. I couldn’t find them in my local store, but my mom found them in her area and brought them when they came to celebrate with us.
I used my favorite buttercream recipe and made it chocolatey-delicious by adding 4 oz of melted unsweetened chocolate at the end. I made another half-batch and colored it construction yellow for my son’s name and the lower border.
To fit the dump truck under the bulldozer (as if it is catching what the bulldozer pushes over the edge), I added a little platform of cardboard wrapped in wax paper. I frosted it to help hold the dump truck in place.
The “dirt piles” are chocolate-filled Oreos, crushed and strategically sprinkled on top to make it look like the bulldozer made a “2” shaped path on the top of the cake. When I dug out the excavator’s pit in the side of the cake, I added more frosting and crushed Oreo to conceal the inside of the cake…because I wanted it to be a surprise!!
Looky! It’s caution-striped!! I used the tutorial HERE to create this cool effect. I added food coloring to a yellow cake mix to give those stripes the construction yellow color, but I just used a dark chocolate cake mix for the “black” stripes.
My son was so excited. He loved the trucks so much that he actually used them to eat his piece of cake! Talk about a sign of approval 😉
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