Hi there,
Just wondering how to make a 3 D Lightning McQueen race car cake?? I am a complete novice so everything from ingredients to technique ) It's for my 2 year old so if its not *perfect I think I should side-step having to face the firing squad, lol. Thanks so much in advance!! xo

http://www.how2cakes.com/3dcar.html

Here is one version but there are others out there if you search the forums.

Well I have Done a couple Tow-Mater cakes and they have all been for kids so its fun to use different candies and donuts for wheels. M&M's make really good eyes and tail lights. For your first time I would make it more fun than try to be too perfect.

I used the 3d cruiser pan and just slanted the top of the car it came out pretty good.

I made my first 3D cake, and that's who it was! It was SO MUCH FUN!!!!

I took 2 8" square cakes, and froze them. I removed them when I was ready to begin, left to defrost about an hour.

I then trimmed off about 1/2" off the bottom layer (it was too tall, imo), frosted in between the layers, and stuck it back in the fridge to set a bit.

I did a search on the web for "lightning mcqueen template photos" and someone had something that looked like a figure 8. That's what I used, but I freehanded it since my cake was going to be smaller.

Since I don't like how bitter red fondant tastes, we picked up the red one that Duff makes. It's expensive, but it's more than enough to cover the cake, and if you use the coupons you can get from AC Moore or Michaels, it's more feasible.

I kept up all of the photos on my laptop, and just trimmed away. Someone had mentioned saving part of the cake to make the spoiler, which I did (I had to use 2 toothpicks to hold it to the cake, which I told the client it was in there, so they weren't hurt).

I cut out the wheel shape using a cookie cutter that was the same shape as the "tires" I was using and used the back of a teaspoon to frost all around the inside the wheel well.

Using frosting to build up the front of the car a little, I then dirty iced it, let it crust over in the fridge, and got out the fondant. Duff suggests you microwave it for a few seconds, which is what I did. It rolled out really really well and actually didn't taste as bad as the Wilton one! He has some nice videos on his site as well, and suggests you use cornstarch and not powdered sugar to roll it out on, if needed.

Looking at all the photos, I made templates on paper, and then placed the paper on the fondant covered car, to see how it would look. If it looked good, I traced it onto cardboard, cut it out, then traced it onto the different colors of fondant, etc. I used a little bit of gum glue to hold it in place on the red fondant. I used a recipe given to me by someone on the forum for fondant figurines, to make the colored fondant.

Using 4 chocolate covered mini donuts, I put some frosting on the back of them, and pushed gently into place.

I also covered an oblong board to look like blacktop and some grass (marbled the green a bit). After simply placing McQueen on the road, I was done

Pictures are under "children's cakes" category if you wish to see them. I also have pics I can send that literally show different stages of the cake, if needed.

I had seen the pan, and while it would have been "easier", it definitely was no where as nice as a 3D cake would have been. I really really detest those little stars!

I made this one the other day... http://cakecentral.com//gallery/2018765
We made the car out of rice krispie treats-first time every using them. Once the form was made, we rolled fondant and covered the entire car. Then we cut out the tires, hand cut the decorations, and piped the hubcaps and and colored the eyes. We actually bought a model car at Target to look at the detail in 3-d while we were doing it. It was a last minute cake from an aquaintance of my DH-we didn't have enough time to do all the details-if you look at the real car on an image, there are a LOT intricate details-you would need a tiny piping tip, and your best bet would probably an icing sheet for all the details because of the racecar advertising, etc. . We opted only for the number and lighting. Anyways, I originally had planned to just ice the cake but it got crumbly when I went to level it, hence the striped buttercream sides. The flags were easy-black& white fondant overlay, rolled slighty, then cut with a square cookie cutter. Had we had more than 3 days to plan ahead (and if I didn't have a 3 tier baby shower cake planned the same day) I would have done a square or 9x13 cake to get better proportion. Also, I used black sugar for the road, which was stupid, stupid, stupid. Sugar of course, went EVERYWHERE> Luckily most of the icing was already dry around the edges, but what a pain. All in all, I loved the car (3-d is our forte anyways), hated the sides but the lady paid $30, I got the request Tuesday afternoon and it was done Thursday night, soooo I'm happy it turned out the way it did. Let me know if you have any other questions!