This may seem like a simple question, but I'm just getting started.

I have a lot of family members who love vehicles, so I will be making a lot of vehicle cakes. For my son's birthday last year, I made a dump truck cake, where the cake was actually elevated above the main cake board, so that it would look like the wheels were supporting the truck. My husband made it the best way he knew how, but it was a beast. The bottom board was a thick piece of wood. There were four large dowel rods screwed into the bottom board, which were concealed by the cupcake wheels. There was a smaller piece of thick wood screwed into the top of the dowels to support the cake. It was huge and annoying to work with.

I was trying to figure out if there were a way to make a board similar to that, which might be lighter and possibly reusable (since, like I said, I plan on having to make many more vehicle cakes in the future). I don't know if I could go without screwing the bases together - I wasn't a big fan of that, since we had to use really big dowels so they wouldn't split. This year, I'm planning on making my son an ambulance cake, complete with flashing lights and working sirens if I can, and I would really like to use a different cake board. Any ideas?

I'd love to read the replies for this one!! I did a transport truck a while back with the same ides, foil covered wooden base on dowels to elevate it. I attached the lights to the base and it worked well but I agree, it's agrivating to work with!! I hope someone has a better plan!!!!

Could you replace the plywood with thick foamcore? You could still screw dowels into it.

Foam under the vehicle "frame" - elevate the body, which has a cake board on a narrower section of foam covered in Black. The black is to allow it to disappear when you look at the cake. The wheels and everything fit under your wheel hubs and it's easy peasy. Gives the illusion of the car being off the ground but gives support. I would perhaps dowel through the cake, foam, and bottom foam board for stability if you think you need it.
I hope I explained this right....

So you're saying instead of using four dowels at the corners, use black foam in the middle of the vehicle? Would all the foam be cut to the same shape as the cake, or would I cut the pieces under the cake smaller? A few inches all the way around?

Hi, I have made two monster trucks and they were elevated. My DH built my boards and I have extras to work with. He used ply wood and 2X4's, cut them to the sizes I needed. They are easy to work with and they look great. If your DH doesn't mind building it, mine said it was not difficult to do.

Check my monster truck photos and you can see what I'm talking about. Of course, my customers return all the boards (base and platform).

I'm not sure if this will help or not. But at the ICES Convention in Orlando a vendor - I don't know who- was selling cake stands for car cakes and another 3d stand. Sorry I can't remember what it was. They were really nice. Maybe someone who was there can give you more info on the vendor.

I use foamcore for my vehicles... I cut the board for the cake from foamcore with notches cut out for the wheels. Then hidden under that, fitting inside those wheel notches and set in from the front and back, is the rectangle piece of foam core that's covered in black....you might need a few layers of foamcore to get the height you want. Does that make sense? It really is pretty easy to do and is super stable. I definitely dowel with a spike down thru the whole thing. Here's a pic of a cake that I did like this:

I can't see the pictures. I tried right clicking and hitting "show picture" but that didn't work either. I think I get what you're saying, though. Thanks for the help!!

Sorry it took for ever to get back. Cake - Cake - Cake!!!

Anyway, I just loaded a picture of the stand my DH built for my monster trucks. That sits on a larger board to hold the cake. The cakes have been so big I havn't had to screw it to the base. It just holds it own. Hope this helps. Good luck.

Toni

I think something weird is going on with photos at the moment. I couldn't see my photo, but now I can. And when I click on home page photos it keeps saying "photo does not exist".

Anyway, if you can't see it, it's the lightning mcqueen cake in my photos. I also did my VW bug like that. I like foam core because it's fairly easy to cut and I like being able to drive dowels into it where necessary.