Tutorial: Tank birthday cake

Kate,
As you know, birthday season has started in our home. We are fairly consistent with birthdays from the end of March to the first of October. Fitting 8 birthday's in during that time is crazy, but fun. There are times when we don't even take down the crepe paper and balloons before the next celebration. I thought I'd share with you the cake I made for B. a couple of weeks ago. It is supposed to be a tank cake. Hopefully you can tell that! He loved it.
This is what I did...I mixed up a cake mix. (I know, not as good as from scratch, but that's all I could handle that day.) I poured the batter into a 9x13 pan and the rest in a greased and floured small metal bowl (make sure it can handle the heat of the oven). I baked them according to directions, baking the bowl cake longer. I have found that if you cut wax paper to fit your 9x13 pan and put it in the bottom before greasing and flouring it, the cake always comes out great.

After removing the cakes from the pans and letting them cool, I frosted them with B.'s frosting of choice, which is:
1 lg. pkg. pudding (chocolate in this case)
2 cups milk
1 8 oz. cool whip (or whipped cream...which is what I did this time)

Mix the pudding with milk and put in fridge until thick. Add cool whip or whipped cream. Let set a bit longer. Spread on cake. You do have to refrigerate the cake once frosted.

After frosting the cake I added chocolate sprinkles. One of my kids also rolled out a large tootsie roll for the tracks and we used small peanut butter cups on the inside of the track. The bowl cake was the turret and the cannon was part of another large tootsie roll. It was a lot of fun. Tuck this away for future reference. With two boys, I'm sure one year they will want an army themed birthday!
I can't wait to show you how the hoop house is coming in the garden. It will be nice to move my plants outside...they are taking over my living room!
Enjoy your day!
Amy