With Daniel’s birthday behind me, and me struggling through all the emotions that are now catching up to me. I thought I would indulge in some of the memories that are more vivid. One being that I baked a cake in the shape of a bus for his “Wheels on the Bus” themed birthday. What? Rewind! Yep, you read correctly. I BAKED his bus cake. And in all honesty although there was a lot of huffing and puffing. It really wasn’t that difficult, and guess what! You can too! No really! I’m gonna break it down really quickly!

wheels on the bus

Bake a cake! So obviously you already have an idea of what you want here. For me, I wanted this cake specifically to be a different colour (we chose green) so when he smashed it, it would be appealing and exciting! I got a rainbow cake mix from the shop. Yep, I don’t bake from scratch, divert your judging eyes. I baked in a pyrex dish because I don’t have a flat baking pan. Improvision at its best! Once it was out and cooled (I actually didn’t wait for it to cool and it became a bit crumbly – not cool, literally).

wheels on the bus

I halved the shape into two rectangles, and then one of the rectangles I halved again and added to the top of the first rectangle. I placed this onto a wooden chopping board covered in foil. Then we just neatened the bus, by cutting the rounded edges and straightening it. I iced the cake and filled the gaps with normal vanilla icing (also from a box). There after I took a long break. LOL! Whipped up some more icing and literally poured from a homemade piping bag over the top.

wheels on the busThen with a spatula I smoothed over the edges and added some wheels with Oreo’s. We added some chocolate waffers for windows and a door, some red and blue M&M’s for lights and some liquorice because the husband felt the bus needed some style. And voila!

wheels on the bus

To just fancy it up a bit I added some grass using coconut and some green food colouring in a plastic bag. And a few boudoir biscuits with wheels and jelly baby men for cars. Because I’m fancy like that!

Personally I am extremely proud of this creation. Daniel was extremely excited at his cash smash, but very polite about smashing his cake. More on that later. Below a picture of how the cake ended up.

wheels on the bus
Photo credit to Kelley Felix (more on her in a post to come)

Should you too want to be a DIY queen (#brag), you will need:

  • 1 box of rainbow cake mix (or you can do this yourself like that slayer that you are!) and a square type baking dish
  • Some extra icing mix other than the one in the box (or DIY)
  • Smarties or M&M’s (I used M&M’s)
  • A small pack of chocolate waffers
  • Liquorice (1 or 2 strips depending on much you want to pimp it out)
  • A chopping board covered in foil
  • A freezer bag for piping
  • 4 oreos for wheels
  • Coconut
  • Food colouring (yellow and green)
  • Little cars – boudoir biscuits and jelly babies (stuck on with icing already made)
In the meantime – are you a DIY bake it yourself kinda mom?

6 Comments on Wheels on the bus themed birthday cake – {How to}

  1. I love baking the cake myself because I know exactly what my kids love and most of the time i will do it from scratch but when I do the rainbow or tie dyed cake I always buy the box mix 🙂

    • YAY! Someone who shares my sentiments when I started this idea I’m sure most people were like oh you are insane. But really it wasn’t that difficult. LOL Thanks for stopping by xx

    • YAY – that was totally the look I was going for lol! Just kidding. It really was so simple, I’m going to attempt more of these in the future. The pride I had with this cake and the pictures – a-ma-zing! Thanks for stopping by O!

Leave a Reply