How to make a race car birthday cake

This past weekend we celebrated my son turning 4 with a race car themed birthday party.  I really enjoy making birthday cakes for my kids and this year decided to tackle a race car cake.

I started by making two nine inch round, double layer cakes.  My son picked chocolate cake, but you could do whatever flavour you like.  Once the two cakes were baked and cooled, I levelled off the tops with a bread knife so that they were flat and even.

I put the two cakes on the serving board we were going to use and then cut a small piece off each cake so that they would lay flat against one another, making a figure eight shape.

I put white icing between the two layers of each cake and then iced the outside of the race car cake with grey icing.  I was going for the concrete/pavement look.  I got the grey icing by combining red, yellow and green food colouring in white icing.  These are the same colours you use to make brown, but I just used less to keep the colour light.  Then I took yellow icing and did the outline of the race car track.

I decided to do a hill on the cake but you could leave this part out and I think it would turn out just as well.  I had put some of the cake batter into a 1 cup glass dish to make a large cupcake.  Then I cut it in half and cut off the top to make the hill.  I iced the piece in white icing and then dipped it on all sides in chocolate cookie crumbs.

Once the hill was on the cake, I filled in the rest of the race car track with chocolate cookie crumbs, pressing the crumbs down into the cake.

I added the yellow lines of the road but taking a small knife and digging a little hole and then piping the yellow icing in the hole.  Once the road was ready, I put six micro mini Cars characters on top, ready to race!

The very last piece was to add a checkered flag boarder around the base.  I purchased some checkered flag duct tape and put a piece on some white bristol board.  It took two pieces to make its way around the whole cake - I held the two pieces together with a bit of clear tape.

I was happy with the way it turned out and it tasted good too!  My son loved it and it was a great addition to his race car themed birthday party.