I have a friend’s kiddo who is obsessed with construction, and I do not mean like the kiddy tool benches with plastic tools, but actual tools and supplies. When we hang out at his house, he often ends up going into the garage to build some new shelf or bench to aid in the game or activity that is going on. When his parents asked if I could make a construction themed cake for his birthday I took the challenge on with excitement. I had made him a tool bench cake the year before (blog incoming) and knew I needed to kick things up a notch! I decided to go for a hard core construction cake with some CAT Toys doing some serious excavating work, read on to learn about the processes I used and how you can make this awesome construction cake yourself!
Building Materials
This cake requires quite a lot of supplies but know that you can adjust them based on your own specific needs and budget. First off are the toys, I often use hard plastic toys on my cakes, but make sure to wash them thoroughly beforehand or create a barrier between the cake and the toy if thorough cleaning is not possible. Please also check any packaging for advisements from the manufacturer as sometimes there are warnings about food safety you need to be aware of. The landscape I chose for the cake is a grassy area with dirt, but you could chose another landscape very easily such as a beach or forest. For the cake itself, I would recommend chocolate, spiced, or carrot cake, but you can use any cake that would appear to look like sand, gravel, dirt, etc. Decorations I recommend are in the list below, but like I said, feel free to adjust them based on your design and needs:
- Brown and Green Frosting (Colored to Match Your Landscape)
- Crushed Oreos or Graham Crackers
- Chocolate Rocks
- Jelly Bean Rocks
- Crushed Heath Bar
Many of these items come in much larger quantities than you need for the cake, but I like to keep these types of supplies on hand for many of my cake designs so as long as you keep them in airtight containers in your pantry, you will likely use them again. If you do not make a lot of cakes, these items are also fun for ice cream sundaes or to mix into snack time options.
Digging and Mortar
To have your cake appear just like the shape of my design, you will want to start with a rectangle cake, mine was a 9×13. I chose to torte the cake into three layers to add some height and it turned out it added some great detail to the area where the cake was cut in to on the front left corner. You will want to layer the cake with the color of frosting you are using for your dirt then apply a thin crumb coating. Once that sets, you will start carving and building up the cake. Keep the toys you are using close as you will want to make sure you are creating enough space for them. Start by cutting a small rectangle into the front left corner so there is only a thin layer of cake left on the bottom (basically cut off the top two layers) with vertical walls on each side so there is just enough space for one of your vehicles. Take the piece you cut off, place it in a bowl and mix it up with a fork, which should make it into a bit of a paste. Later, you will pile this up on the back right corner to look like a pile of excavated dirt. Next, you are going to want to trim some of the top of the cake off on the right side, this is super easy if you decide to torte your cake into three layers, as you can just remove the top layer on this side. I made it look like a sloping hill on this side as well, so you do not have to remove the cake from the whole side, just enough to make it sloped. Then, take this piece of cake and stack it on the back left corner and add additional dirt colored frosting to hold this in place. I ended up cutting my piece in half and stacking it for additional height. This hill should not be a perfect rectangle, so if the piece of cake breaks up as you move it, fear not. If you want to add additional height you can use any pieces of cake you trimmed when you torted the cake. Now you can pile up the excavated dirt in the back right corner.
So now you should have the following layout of the cake: front left corner cut into with straight sides to the bottom layer, back left corner stacked into a hill taller than the rest of the cake, front right corner cut into a sloping hill, back right corner a sloping hill with the pile of excavated dirt piled on top.
Final Touches
Once the frosting on the carved cake is set, you can begin decorating it. Start by spreading a slightly thicker layer of dirt colored frosting on the bottom of the cut out on the front left corner, then create a path down the middle of the cake in the same fashion. I would also add a bit of extra frosting on the excavated dirt pile so it is easier to add the cookie crumbs. Now, add the green frosting to everywhere else on the cake except the walls of the cut out area on the front left side. To create the grass texture in the frosting, simply take a fork and use the back side of the tines to pull up on the frosting to create the texture. Next you get to add all the fun parts! Start by gently pressing small amounts of the cookie crumbs into the excavated dirt pile. You can drop some around the areas where you are putting your vehicles and then put them on. As you are placing the vehicles, think about how you can create movement by making them appear to be actively working around the site. For the front left hand side, pile a bit of the crushed Heath bar to one side, then add a vehicle scooping it up. I also added a vehicle above the hole looking like it was scooping up the pile from the top. On the hill, add some of the jelly bean rocks with a vehicle hauling some of them off the site. Finally, line the bottom edge of the cake with the chocolate rocks as a border.
He Loved It!
While this cake required a lot of planning and work it was so worth it in the end! The birthday boy loved it and it was quite the topic of conversation at the party. We even found some traffic cone candles for him to blow out which just made everything even better. As you can see they requested a second small cake as someone else was being celebrated at the same party, so you can see how easy it is to modify the design for other styles and shapes of cake if needed. This was one of my favorite cakes I have ever made and I cannot wait to hear about what you do with my design, let me know in the comments below how it all goes!
