Coolest John Deere Birthday Cake 41

by Karla B.
(St. Albert, Alberta, CANADA)

Homemade John Deere Birthday Cake

Living on the farm with only "Green" equipment, it wasn't a stretch to find inspiration for my son's 2nd birthday John Deere Birthday Cake. I am very crafty and a perfectionist, I've also made a Cookie Monster, Lightening McQueen and an alligator for my sons' birthdays. I love making cakes for my boys, but they do take a lot of time. Their birthdays are within a week of each others so talk about pressure from the bar I've set!

I ordered the tractor cake pan for this cake, but to personalize it for my little guy I made the cake "Johnny Tractor", a character from the John Deere toys. I used a chocolate pound cake recipe and made it 2 days before my second son was born. Freezing the cake keeps it nice an moist. I decorated this when my newborn was only 5 days old. I followed the directions for the Wilton butter cream icing. I wasn't able to get the concentrated colors, so I colored the icing the day before so it would darken over night to get just the right John Deere green. I still find black tough to make even starting with the chocolate icing, it looks very shiny to me because of the cocoa.

I could follow a lot of the outline from the pan, but I iced free handed copying from my son's toy tractor. The icing was pretty thick, so I vowed to learn how to use the star tip for future cakes. I did all the outlining and then filled in with the colored icing. I rely on my bamboo skewers to help move the icing if needed into just the right spot. Voila, another very cool birthday cake.