Habitual Baker: Someone call the Fire Department??

My nephew's birthday is this month. He's turning 5 ( holy crap, time flies!). He's into fire trucks and wears his fire fighters outfit ALL the TIME. So serious. I was supposed to make him a fire fighter hat cake last year for his birthday but I got so slammed with cake orders that I didn't have time. I was determined to make him an awesome cake this year!!

I was kinda torn though. I didn't want to over-do it and get too fancy shmancy, ( mainly because I would drain myself of what little life I had left in me) but I want to make sure he said "you ROCK autie!!" ....or something along those lines!

The Google is my best friend at this point. I usually just google what kind of cake I want to make and look at all the images, manipulating them in my head to make them uniquely mine. I print a picture or two as a guideline ( I'm a terrible artist, funny how that works!) and start to make my billion lists.

I'm gonna carve myself a fire engine outta cake!

This is one of the Fire Engine cakes that I liked & printed.

...and my red fondant.

I baked a half sheet of vanilla cake and make a couple batches of vanilla buttercream frosting. Nothing complicated. Vanilla works just fine! I'm going to cut the half sheet in 4ths and carve from that. It really didn't need much carving though, the truck is pretty much a rectangle. Actually, all I really did was cut a chunk out of the top layer for the indent where the gray strip is and make some indents where the tires go.

I was supposed to put a couple of layers of foam board in between the cake and the board so that the wheels would look like they were actually holding the fire engine up, but....well, I have girls who also need me to do their hair. Girls hair takes forever. Needless to say, it took me eons to actually finish this cake. Not because it was hard, but simply because my mommy duties supersede by auntie and cake duties. And they obviously supersede my sleep duties too because I never sleep when I work on cakes! Ask my husband.

Alright, the cake is baked, cut and layered. I let it settle for a while and then threw a coat of frosting all over.

You'll see a lot of this table. This is my favorite corner to make cakes on! Not sure why.

It took me a couple tries to cover this cake in fondant. I have to admit that I was got a little frustrated when I tried to cover it the first time. The fondant was too thin on the corners and I stretched it too much while smoothing. That and it was really flipping hot inside my house! I ripped a stupid hole in all four corners. Grrrrrr. Let's try this again!

Geeze! Why did that have to be so hard!?

So this guy is covered and I get to start cutting the details. I've got to make the ramp thingy, and the gray middle thingy and then the control area thingies. Yeah, I know nothing about fire engines! Lol. I had to call in the knowledgeable hubby! He's a truck driver and he knows all things vehicle. He gave me some guidance on the fabrication of this here truck.

When I put the gray thingy ( he didn't share any of the terminology with me!) in the indent, I realized that I'd carved the wheel wells too far back. They should be in front of the gray strip. oops. It's all good. Hey, hand me that knife over there! I lifted the fondant, plugged the hole with more fondant and cut out the wheel well closer to the front of the truck. All better.

Once I fixed the wheel well issue, it was smooth sailing. Although I did have about and hour and a half before we had to leave for Family Dinner and my nephew's bday celebration. Guess I'd better get a move on.

Finally...