No Bake Train Cake
This is one of my favourite kid birthday cakes and the beauty of this cake is that it requires no cooking and can be created in very little time from basic ready-made ingredients you can buy in the supermarket. Older children will enjoy helping you assemble it but watch out that they don’t eat the ingredients first as it’s made out of all the things that children love.
Grass
2 X 250g (8 1/2 oz) packets dessicated coconut
1 X 38 ml (1 1/2 oz) edible green food colouring
water
75 ml (5 tbsp) apricot jam
Chocolate Buttercream
75g (3 oz) softened butter
125g (4 1/2 oz) icing sugar
15ml/1 tbsp cocoa powder
15ml/1 tbsp milk
Ingredients
5 X 205g Cadbury’s chocolate Roll filled with chocolate buttercream
1 milk chocolate marshmallow tea cake
1 chocolate Rolo
1 X 227g (8 oz) packet Liquorice Allsorts
1 packet liquorice Catherine wheels
1 box chocolate sticks eg: Matchmakers
1 X 150g box Cadbury’s white chocolate fingers
1 X 150g box Cadbury’s milk chocolate fingers
20 milk-chocolate coated Mini Swiss Rolls
6 raspberry jam sandwich creams
fuse wire
cotton wool balls
1 X 150g (5 oz) packet of fizzy strawberry and cream lances
mini packets of assorted sweets
1 X 21g pot Supercook sugar flowers (cake decoration)
Method:
To make the grass, thoroughly mix the dessicated coconut with a few drops of the green food colouring and a few drops of water. The cake boards can be stuck together first if you like or if you are going to transport the cake it’s probably best if they are left separate. Warm the apricot jam and brush it over the surface of two 40 X 30 cm (16 X 12”) silver cake boards. Strew the green coconut over the cake boards so that they are completely covered.
To make the chocolate buttercream, beat the softened butter until creamy. Sift the icing sugar and cocoa powder into the bowl and beat together with the butter. Finally, beat in the milk.
Cut about 5 cm (2”) off the end of one of the large chocolate Swiss rolls and secure this on top of a whole large chocolate Swiss roll to form the engine with some of the chocolate buttercream or a cocktail stick to form the cab. Secure a chocolate marshmallow tea cake with a Rolo to form the chimney. If you like, arrange some cotton wool balls on a short length of fuse wire and attach these to the chimney to look like steam. Attach two Liquorice Allsorts to form the windows of the cab. Attach a liquorice Catherine Wheel to the front of the cab with some buttercream.
Lay out the track using two parallel lines of chocolate Matchmaker sticks in a zig zag pattern and lay white chocolate and milk chocolate fingers alternately across the track to form the railway line. You will need to allow for the engine and four carriages. Put five mini milk chocolate rolls at the front of the track to form the bumper and the wheels of the engine and balance the engine on top. Attach three raspberry sandwich cream biscuits to each side of the engine with some of the buttercream to form the wheels and decorate the front with Liquorice Allsorts. Cut a thin slice off the top of the remaining large chocolate Swiss rolls to form the carriages of the train and spread the flat surfaces with some of the chocolate buttercream. Lay each of the carriages over the mini Swiss rolls along the track. Pile the sweets onto the open trucks. Arrange some of the sugar flowers to decorate the grass covered cake board.
Plan the next party with these fun games.
This recipe is from the Complete Party Planner.
