Peep! Peep! Percy chugging through!

Did you see the tale of the two chairs? Would you have guessed that handsome little prince just turned 4 years old?





ALL he told us he wanted was a Percy cake. Do you know Percy?

He's best friends with Thomas the Tank Engine.

Now both of my boys have been Thomas fans for a long time, so I've made Thomas cakes before...

Here is Thomas from Bubby's 3rd birthday back in 2008

Doesn't Bubby look so little back then?

And this was Thomas last year for Baby Boy's 3rd birthday.

I'd even made a cupcake tower for Baby Boy's 2nd birthday with cookie train cars on all the cupcakes chugging around a mountain...but I couldn't find the proof pictures.

But to be honest, I didn't have the time or inclination to go through that again....I needed something quicker and simpler. I guess that's a pitfall of being kid #3, huh?

So here's how we made a quick & easy, down and dirty, Percy cake.

I used 2 boxes of cake mix. The first I baked in a jelly roll pan.






The second I baked in a round pan and a small rectangular pan ( this one came from Pizza Hut's Tuscany pasta...I had saved it for my next cinnamon roll extravaganza).






Since I was using 2 mixes I went wild (not) and used 2 flavors. Bake the cakes and let them cool as directed on the box. And ignore my nasty stovetop. I was having issues.

Remove the cake from the jelly roll pan onto a cake board. I just used my extra large cutting board. I leveled the cake, then inverted it onto the covered board.





My mom had given me a can of this ready to use green icing. It was barely enough, but it did the trick. I wish I had more...but it almost covered everything and by the time it was spread on the cake, I was afraid to mix up my own batch of green in case it didn't match. Besides, 4 year olds don't really cake if you can see a little cake peeking through.

Spread green icing on the sides and outer edges of the top of the cake. If you have plenty of icing, spread it over the whole cake by all means.

Next, level the round cake, invert it and place it on top of the base cake. This will be Percy's face. Using your cake pan as a guide, cut an arc onto the small rectangular cake. It will be the engine's funnel and will need to fit up against the round face of the engine. Place it on the cake as well.





Go back and touch up your icing. You can see I still had some holes at this point on the bottom layer.

Mix up some flesh-colored icing and ice Percy's face. Then ice his funnel black. I just used canned chocolate for this, mainly because I have a serious love affair with chocolate icing...and I think it tastes way, way better than decorator icing.





Again, go back and clean up your edges and any overlaps. Then, I used a sparkly black icing pen to add Percy's face.






Some yellow circles make the engine's lights. You can see, the single can of green was not really enough icing, but I don't think he minded.






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