I am making a sheet cake for my FIL 60th b'day. He loves steam trains. I found a mini cake tin of an engine & 8 carriages. I thought of using this as a cake topper for the cake. I didnt want to make them out of cake. What can i use? Seems alot of wastage to use fondant or gumpaste? Please Help!!!

I don't know how big the train is, but could you use the train tins as a mould to fill with melted chocolate, or give a thick coating of melted chocolate to the tins so that the finished result was quite thick but hollow in the centre? Hope this helps. Chocolate is never wasted, someon always eats it in my opinion. Another thought, could you incorporate the rice crispie treats that I dont seem to be able to buy in Britain but everyone raves about on this site.