Tractor Cake
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I made a tractor cake for my husband. He drives a John Deere, so I wanted to surprise him with a John Deere Cake. I wanted to do something out of the ordinary, that he and my boys would like to eat. It is always a debate over what tractor type is your favorite, but my youngest son insists that John Deere tractors are the best. |
I made a tractor cake for my husband. He drives a John Deere, so I wanted to surprise him with a John Deere Cake. I wanted to do something out of the ordinary, that he and my boys would like to eat. It is always a debate over what tractor type is your favorite, but my youngest son insists that John Deere tractors are the best.
My boys love to go and see the tractors at the farm that my husband drives. We would make a whole day of sitting in the different tractors. Each time the boys are also so shocked to see how short they are compared to the tired. They loved to climb up the ladder to get into the cab. They loved to look at all of the buttons. And they especially loved to sit in the buddy seat if it was running.
We have buckets of tractors. We have an outdoor bucket, an indoor bucket and of course many larger tractors. We even have a couple that the kids can ride. This is the first time we have had food that incorporated tractors.
How the Make the Ultimate Tractor Cake
I baked a regular cake slab type of a cake. I made it in a clear glass casserole dish. I chose this dish so that the cake would be thick and could stay in the dish. This way there is also less icing because it is only one layer. I used a nice buttercream icing. I iced the cake like normal using my angled cake spatula.
With a knife I make the lines in the field. If you wanted you could use a toothpick to grove in the lines. When driving throughout the country you can see that some fields have different colors in the soil. To add this extra dimension to the ground I thought it would look great to have some differentiation in the soil. To give the ground this texture I ground up 1 graham cracker. I used a cheese grater to ground the graham cracker. I didn’t need too much so I figured this would be quick and easy. If I was going to do more than one graham cracker I would use a small kitchen blender. I sprinkled the graham cracker mixture on the icing using a small spoon. To help make the graham cracker crumble stay in place I pushed it down using plastic wrap. I then repeated the process with oreo cookies. I only use the outside of the oreo and ground it up. Once I had a small bowl I again used a small spoon to sprinkle it along the grooves in the farm field. I then got another small piece of plastic wrap to press the oreo crumbs into place.
In the corner I thought that it would look nice with some grass. Cake designs are fun because they truly get to represent your target audience. My kids are obsessed with sprinkles at the moment, therefore the grass was then made with green sprinkles. If I was doing this for other people I probably would have used icing tip 223. I think this is the funnest icing tip. I love the outcome of the grass with this tip. When making the icing for grass I often use the green tint color of leaf green. It makes a cheery grass color.
I made the fence using toothpicks. I always think that anything on a cake needs to be edible, but since it was just for my family I figured that it would be alright to have a few non edible items. For the tractor and the 2 horses I just used toys. Afterward we just cleaned up the horses and the tractor and added them to the collection of tractors in our household.
My husband and boys were very surprised at the creative tractor birthday cake. It tasted delicious. On the side we added some ice cream and berries.
Where we live there are a number of parades throughout the year. Being in the country there are always tractors in the parade and on display afterwards. It is really fun to see all the different designs of the tractors and to see how they have changed throughout time. We always try to give mini family awards to the tractor. Which was the biggest? Which was the oldest? Which is the tallest? Which one has the most rust? Which one was decorated the nicest? There’s always lots to look at during these parades.
Now on a serious note… you should really have a safety talk about tractors with young children. It is such an important conversation. Being that we live in the country there are many different rules that we have for our children. It is similar to when you are around any type of large machinery.
