Hot Wheels Birthday Cake

We recently celebrated my son’s 5th birthday and when I asked him what he wanted the theme to be, he replied Hot Wheels. This came as a shock to me, because the last two years have been all about Disney/Pixar CARS. I’m all up for change though, so I went with it.

Every year, we have a small gathering of my in-laws, along with just a couple of close friends. Nothing huge, because they are still young and we try to make the kids’ birthdays low-key. My son isn’t a fan of crowds or loud noises, so the small group works well.

So, what did I make? He asked for a Hot Wheels Birthday Cake…and I made one. 😀  Woot! I was so worried he wouldn’t like it, but the smile on his face took away all of my fears. He LOVED it and thanked me over and over for making his “Awesome” cake.

How I Made a Hot Wheels Birthday Cake

Here’s what I did. He wanted a confetti cake, so I found a great coupon and a sale and proceeded to pay $.87 for said box of cake. Cool Beans! I make my own homemade frosting – you can see the full frosting recipe in an earlier post. I used the items I had on hand for the frosting, so it didn’t cost me anything. After making the frosting, I added green food coloring until I found the green color that I was happy with.

Still with me? Okay, good. I bought 3 Hot Wheels cars for the top of the cake, because those will not go to waste…just another birthday present to play with when we’ve finished eating the cake. Before we frosted the cake, we turned the cooled cake over so that the bottom was on the top and the surface was flat. So much easier to make a road on a flat surface.

How to make the road? I saw some great fondant recipes but to be honest I was a little scared. Yep. I was, so I found another coupon for the grand opening of a Hobby Lobby and ran there to find some fondant, or at least some ideas. I found a box of pre-colored fondant in black. All I had to do was roll it and cut it. Sounds easy, right? Yep. It was. I cut smaller pieces from the chunk of fondant and rolled them out, used a knife to cut them into “roads” and added white icing as the road lines. I used my #5 cookie cutter to cut out the number for my son’s age, I printed out his name on a sheet of paper, then placed the paper on top of the rolled fondant and cut the letters. I found the Hot Wheels logo online and printed a small version, cut it and taped two tooth picks to the back so that I could put it on the cake. Finally, I used used blue gel to add Happy Birthday. Oh, and I added the 3 cars to the road. Whew!

My son’s reaction? He jumped up and down and had the biggest smile on his face. He LOVED it. It didn’t cost an arm and a leg, plus I had one very happy 5 year old on my hands. Everyone was impressed. Even I was impressed. Enjoy!

More birthday cake ideas for boys.

Topic: Hot Wheels Birthday Cake