Fire Truck Cake

What you’ll need:
1 cake mix
1½-16 oz. containers of ready-made pink frosting
Red food coloring
6 pieces of black licorice to make the ladders
6 Hostess™ chocolate mini donuts for the wheels
2 Hershey’s Kisses™ for the headlights
3 gum drops for the siren lights
1 small tube of black writing gel to outline gumdrops and windows
1 cup of white butter cream frosting
1 piece of red string licorice for the hose

Does a BIG birthday cake taste better than a small cake? No, but a really big cake sure is fun to look at, and makes a great centerpiece for a birthday table! The following guidelines will give you an idea of what size to choose for your party:

9″ X 13″ Rectangle pan – 1 mix: serves 12-18 guests
18″ X 13″ Rectangle pan – 2 mixes: serves 18-28 guests (If you are using this size pan, just double the amount of frosting…all other ingredient amounts will remain the same.)

Because you are cutting the cake into a shape, you will be discarding some of the cake, and will need to adjust the size accordingly. If you are serving more people than can be accommodated by 2 boxed mixes, we recommend that you either bake extra cupcakes, or an extra rectangular cake. All can just be frosted simply, and cut and served behind the scenes.

Cut and assemble the cake according to the diagrams below.

Using white frosting, add windows. Next, frost entire engine with the red frosting. Outline windows with the black gel. Add ladders (use two whole pieces, and cut one to make ladder rungs,) headlights, siren, door handle (a “ladder rung”), and the red licorice hose (we added a tiny piece of tin foil to the end of the licorice to create a nozzle.) Enjoy!