Train Cake

Well...

My DH is home from India - FINALLY. :) In anticipation & to celebrate, the boys and I made train cake. I saw the pan on someone else's blog and decided I needed an excuse to buy it.

My kids like to bake with me. It is something we have fun together doing. With this new recipe that I wanted to be "perfect", I wasn't as patient with them in mixing up the batter as I could have been - I did let them measure the ingredients, but when it was time to put the batter in the pan, I waved them away so I could do it "right".

Not that I did. I put too much in the first set of 9 and they rose too high and so I had lots of cake to cut off and not enough batter to make a full second set of 9 like the recipe said I would.

While the cakes were cooling, we went to the store to buy candies to decorate the train cakes with. I had several ideas in mind and we bought lots of fun candies. When we got home, I prepared all the candies in bowls and made a marshmallow frosting recipe for the "glue" from my friend's blog about cakes: Create Cakes Trifle

Then the kids joined me and we began decorating the cakes. Luckily I had also read an essay on a friend's blog about control and happiness and other lovely ideas. Happy and Free essay With these wonderful thoughts swirling in my head, I managed to release control and have fun with my kids. I gave ideas, and helped decorate to some extent - I think for a group activity, I should be involved too, not just an observer always. But I didn't get upset when L covered his hands in marshmallow frosting and played with that for a while. Or when H put extra candy wheels on some cars and none on others. I didn't say anything when they put candies in random spots on the train cars or when the decided to cover most of the creation in sprinkles. I decided to enjoy the moments and appreciate the joy of my kids discovering cake decoration and candy play and the joys of the train cake.

It sparked so much imaginative and discovery play for my kids. They had fun playing with the train cake as much as making it. It was a joyful experience, and I think I like the finished product a lot more than my "perfectly" decorated train cake I had in my mind, especially since my kids enjoyed showing it to their dad that much more and telling him all about their favorite parts of making it.

I hope you like some of the pictures from the process. I did not take any pictures of the kids covered in frosting and candy, I wish I had. They were so happy. :)