Using Pictures of Birthday Cakes for Inspiration

You're just about finished with all of your plans for your child's birthday. Then, he or she mentions that a cake that looks like a dinosaur or Thomas the Train would be the perfect gift. Suddenly, your idea to whip up a quick cake mix the night before the big day is not looking so good. How can you create a cake like the one your child wants? Often, the answer is to just look at pictures of birthday cakes other people have made for inspiration. When you see a picture of the cake you want to make, go ahead and take a few moments to look at the whole thing. Before you start to panic, remember that the cake was probably built from smaller cake parts. The cake pieces are glued together with icing and then the whole cake is covered with more icing to hide the seams. Take a hard look at the picture of the cake and think about what shapes were used to make it. Perhaps a few small circle cakes were cut in half to make train wheels, while half of a slightly larger circle made the train's face. A few inches could be cut from a rectangular cake to make a smoke stack and the rest of the rectangle could be the body of the train.