Matthew's Fire Engine Birthday Cake

In the past I've done two cakes that I attempted to turn red and ended up with pink.  I've been using Wilton Gel Dye, and after advice from some of my friends, I tried Wilton's Icing Color (which I think might actually be the same thing? it looked the same).  I still got pink.  Turns out that vegetable oil based frostings (i.e. storebought) don't take red dye very well.  Now I know.

Even though it was bright bubblegum pink, I still really like how it turned out!  Here's the view from the front:

For the cake shape itself, I used two loaf pans (and one storebought cake mix).  One cake was the back end of the truck, and the other I cut into thirds and stacked for the front.  I used Dots candies for the lights.  I had saved some frosting as white, so I piped an outline and filled that in for the windows.  It wasn't perfectly straight, but it wasn't too shabby.  I have limited frosting skills, I've discovered...

Here's a side view:

I used some fun striped cookies for wheels, and also piped a ladder onto the back.  I thought about doing a white chocolate 3D ladder (like I did a design for Jesse's Superman cake), but since we were traveling, I didn't want to make things too complicated.

And then this happened...

Even with toothpicks holding the layers together, the fire truck still crashed.  I was able to fix it for candles, but it was a bit of a bummer.

Still, I don't think the birthday boy minded. 

 

Happy Birthday Matthew!