Cute Homemade Garbage Truck Birthday Cake

My son is obsessed with garbage trucks so it was only appropriate for him to have a garbage truck birthday cake for his birthday. After discovering that it was difficult to get one made for a reasonable price I decided to attempt one myself. I actually love to cook, but never-ever bake so I was initially intimidated. Now I’ve decided to make cakes for each of my kids every year! My son was thrilled with the results, I was thrilled with the results, and the cake was the hit of the party.

I started with a 12×24″ cake filled with a buttercream layer. I froze it overnight and carved it with a very sharp butcher knife. I found it best to rinse and dry the knife if cake or filling got stuck to it. I then mixed food coloring into regular store-bought white icing and spread a layer over the cake. Green for the body and grey for the cab. (Don’t buy the whipped kind! It’s too sticky!) I cooled off the cake again and was able to further smooth the icing with a butter knife. I’d dip it in water to help smooth. Cooled the cake again and pipped on the detailed work in black. Added yellow lights on the front and top, then red on the back. I filled the windows with white flowers from a store-bought can. Then I smushed up three huge chocolate cupcakes for the wheels, adding white and red for the hub caps. Then connected the front loader with black licorice.

The cake was on an ugly piece of cardboard so I spread the bottom with white icing and sprinkled crushed Oreos for the road. I made blue for the sky and filled the rest of the board with swirls. My son also was involved and made a garbage can out of leftover cake that’s sitting in the upper right corner. We added some Oreos for wheels.

I was pleasantly surprised at how nice the cake came out and am now excited to make all future birthday cakes for my children’s parties!


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