I've been asked to make a truck or firetruck type cake for a first birthday party. The grandmother lives here in Nashville, but will be driving the cake to Atlanta (about 4 1/2 hours away) to the party.

I haven't made a lot of 3-D cakes, and I am worried about the transporting. I'm assuming it would do better than a stacked cake. I just can't decide if I should do 3-D or just a flat sheet cake that looks like a truck. Anybody had any horror stories transporting 3-D cakes?

If I were doing this, I'd want the cake to be as solid as possible.

I recently did a horizontal rocket cake that would be outside for a while in 92 degree heat.

I used the Wilton 16x4 long loaf pan. I baked 2 half recipes (about 5 cups of batter), rather than one large recipe in it because I felt that the resulting cake would taste better. I used only buttercream to glue the 2 cakes together--no real filling and no torting. I froze the assembled cake and then carved it while still frozen.

The cake was extremely stable and I think that the shape of the pan would translate really well into a truck or firetruck. It would serve about 30 people party sized servings.

http://www.bakedeco.com/detail.asp?id=7792&trng=fgle

HTH
Rae

I haven't made a firetruck as of yet but I have made a few other truck(see my pics).I also used a loaf pan like Blakescakes.I usually used 1 and a half loaf cakes,1 whole one for the back and half one for the front cut to the shape I want it to be,or I sometimes use my wilton car pan along with a loaf pan if I need more cake.

Oops! I forgot to say I had to travel with mine ,not as far as you,but I used plenty of buttercream and they held together well,and I did put them flat on the board and piped the tires on the side instead of trying to raise it up for the full 3d effect,hope that makes sense.