Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

A little over a year ago, you met this lovely mom-to-be.  Fast-forward to now and she's got a lovely little boy who is walking all over the place. But he just had a birthday and needed a cake. After much agonizing, mom decided on a transportation theme for the shindig.

The birthday boy needed his own cake and the rest of the guests needed something not covered in ankle biter germs. Although now that he is walking, he can easily bite knees and not just ankles. So here's what they got:

 How sweet is the personalized license plate?

I had the worst time with the frosting on the little car. It refused to smooth, wouldn't crust, and the blue kept changing colors on me. But it was nice and bright when it was all over the birthday boy's face for the pictures.

Planes:

 Trains:

 And automobiles (a green car like mommy's):

Check out the awesome train tracks on this thing! I seriously even measured all of them out so they'd be about the same size! But I loved the detail it added.

The cake flavors were really fun to make. The top layer is white velvet cake, strawberries and buttercream filling, and white chocolate ganache frosting. But the bottom layer was an homage to mom's favorite drink, the mudslide. She even let me use her booze to make it. The cake was my favorite dark chocolate with Kalhua added to the batter. When it cooled, I soaked the cake with more Kalhua. It is filled with buttercream flavored with Bailey's Irish Cream. And the whole thing is covered with vodka chocolate ganache. And it was yummy, with a nice little kick to it.

And here is the caboose of the train! Do you remember when trains actually had these? The best part of being stuck at a railroad crossing when I was a kid was waving at the guy in the caboose. Then one day they didn't have them anymore and a part of my childhood died. [Tell us another one about the old days grandma!] (A truck like daddy's, even though the color is wrong.)

 And if I do say so myself, this turned out so stinking cute.