My First Carved Cake: Mater

Sorry I have been MIA; too much baking, cooking and activities bunched into such a short time span that I just needed to take a break. But I’m back!

My Mater cake order for the end of February was cancelled but I thought I’d dig up the picture from the last Mater cake I did and show you. For those of you who don’t know, Mater is the tow truck from the Disney movie Cars. I had to do some research and watch the movie myself before I made this cake. Cute movie, even for adults!

This cake was my first carved/3D cake. The only bad part about making this cake is that it was late August, it was very hot and humid, and I don’t have central air! The brown fondant was melting before I could even get it on the cake. I had to keep stopping to put the cake in the fridge for it to chill. So it took a little longer than expected but then again it always does.

The base was a 12” round 2 layer yellow cake covered with chocolate buttercream. I piped the cactus using a star tip and small bunches of grass with the multi opening tip (also used for hair). The rocks are chocolate covered bridge mix. There is a road on the top of the cake but it was completely covered by the truck.

I used fondant cutters to cut out the “Happy Birthday William” ahead of time so they would dry and piped a small line of buttercream around the inside edge of the cake to use as a “support” for the letters.

For Mater, I started with a 9” x 13 “ cake cut in half and stacked to make a basic truck shape about 9” x 6” x 4” high. (I did practice earlier with a frozen pound cake just to get an idea of how to carve it.) Once I did some basic carving, around the headlights, the engine space, the wheel wells, and the truck bed, I covered it with chocolate buttercream. Next I covered with brown fondant. I did lots of smaller pieces so it would look like the panels on a truck, for example the front fenders, the cab, the doors, the rear fenders, etc. Once everything was all smoothed and chilled, it was time for the details.

Chocolate donuts for the wheels, a peanut butter cup for the engine and Twix for the bars in the truck bed. The windows, eyes, teeth, and headlights are white fondant. The side mirrors were made ahead of time and are just small rectangles of dry brown fondant with toothpicks used to hold them in place on the truck. The large 3 was also cut out ahead of time to dry and was supported with a lollipop stick. The blue and green surfaces are thinned buttercream that I brushed on with a small paintbrush. Buttercream was used to pipe the yellow caution lines on the back, the small lights on top of the cab and the hubcaps.

And that’s how I made Mater!