Of all the amazing kids’ party food, nothing beats a classic birthday cake. Chug down memory lane with this choo-choo train, straight from the cover of our Children’s Birthday Cake Book.
Ingredients
Method
Make cake batter according to directions on packet, divide mixture evenly between four greased 25cm x 8cm (10 inch x 3 inch) bar tins. Bake in moderate oven, 30 minutes, or until cooked when tested. Turn cakes on to wire rack to cool.
How to cut the train cake pieces
When cooled, cut bar cakes in half vertically to give eight equal pieces. Reserve five of these to make tops of the four carriages and back of engine.
Cut remaining three pieces in half horizontally to give six equal pieces, five of which form the bases of the engine and four carriages.
Cut off one quarter of remaining piece to add to engine base to extend it, discard remaining three quarters.
Cut a 4cm (1 ½ inch) wide slice from sponge roll, hold slice upright and cut out smoke stack shape with a 2.5cm (1 inch) plain cutter. Use the rest of the sponge roll for engine. Assemble cake, as shown, on prepared board.
Make Vienna Cream icing
Make Vienna cream: Beat butter until white and creamy. Slowly add half icing sugar, beating constantly. Continue beating and slowly add in milk, then remaining icing sugar. Mixture should be smooth and easy to spread with a spatula. Divide Vienna cream into five equal portions, tint each portion with different food colouring.
Cover tops and sides of engine and carriages each with different-coloured Vienna cream.
Decorate the train cake
Join carriages with pairs of jube rings. To do so split one ring, push the other ring through it, press on to Vienna cream. Outline engine and tops of carriages with thin licorice, as shown.
Cover top and sides of smoke stack with red Vienna cream, coat with chocolate sprinkles, position, as shown. With a skewer, make holes through five pieces of popcorn, thread on to pipe cleaner, insert into smokestack.
Place whole ice-block sticks across front, back and between carriages, as shown, to represent sleepers. To make other sleepers, break ice-block sticks into 4cm (1½ inch) lengths, slide them underneath edges of cake on both sides. Double strips of licorice on either side of train represent tracks. Position chocolate biscuits, as shown, to represent wheels, stick round coloured chocolate buttons on chocolate biscuits with a little Vienna cream.
Cut a 4cm x 1cm (1½ inch x ½ inch) strip from wafer, press strip firmly on to bottom front of engine. Arrange pieces of 2.5cm (1 inch) licorice against wafer, as shown, to represent “cow catcher”. Pile popcorn on top of carriages, decorate rest of cake with coloured buttons.
The Children’s Birthday Cake Book
First published in 1980, The Australian Women’s Weekly Children’s Birthday Cake Book has been loved for generations. After all, who doesn’t have at least one memory of poring over the well-thumbed pages, trying to decide on this year’s birthday cake?
The vintage edition collectors’ cookbook is available if you feel like taking a trip down memory lane or would you prefer our 40th Anniversary edition.
The history of The Australian Women’s Weekly train cake
Ironically, it was a train strike which inspired the cake which graces the cover of The Australian Women’s Weekly Children’s Birthday Cake Book, writes The Australian Women’s Weekly Deputy Editor Tiffany Dunk.
Original Test Kitchen member Agnes Lee was caught out on her way to work by unexpected industrial action. Sitting at the station and waiting for a train that wouldn’t arrive, she was struck by the passing of a freight train, laden with coal and other goods.
“I thought, I can’t make a train with all the people and the seats,” she says now, “but a train that only carries coal? Yes, I could make that!”.
Cake day in the Test Kitchen
Luckily, Ellen Sinclair, The Weekly’s Food Director, had already allocated the following day a “cake day”.
“When things are not so tight doing our features, Ellen Sinclair (who the team fondly called Mrs S) would say, ‘keep tomorrow free as a cake day.’” Agnes recalls. “Sometimes it’s difficult to have an idea, we were never told by Mrs S which cake to make.”
All aboard the choo choo train cake
And so she got to work on the Choo Choo Train she’d imagined the previous day. With separate carriages in differing colours, five pots of icing needed to be made.
The Test Kitchen’s lolly cupboard was raided to get out jelly jubes for the train links, Smarties and licorice strips for decoration, chocolate biscuits for wheels as well as the popcorn to replicate coal (and threaded onto a pipe cleaner to emulate the smoke coming out of the smokestack). Popsicle sticks were employed for the train tracks.
The famous cover girl
The cake was finished, Mrs S approved it, and the resulting creation was photographed. But when the team were working on the cover – they chose the train to feature as it could wrap around the entire book – they realized an error had been made.
“We had to keep an eye on the lollies,” Agnes says. “Because the (brand name) was one or two of the lollies the whole thing had to be redone!”
Whether you remember pestering Mum to pleeeease make you the jelly swimming pool cake for your birthday or have fond memories of decorating these birthday favourites with your kids, these timeless classics are sure to give you a nostalgia hit.
