Trailer Trash Party Cake

I thought I'd share with you the cake I brought to the "Trailer Trash" party that I talked about in my last post!  When I told Bonnie I'd bring a dessert, I began to wonder what I could bring that would blend with the theme - then it hit me! I could make a trailer cake!  I love watching the program "Ace of Cakes" so it would a fun challenge. I didn't have time to make a cake from scratch so I mixed up a box of white cake mix and mixed some rainbow sprinkles into the dough so the cake itself would look trashy on the inside.  Unfortunately, I didn't think to take pictures so I'll describe how I made the cake as best I can!

I poured the batter into a 9 x 13" glass cake pan that I had sprayed with "Baking Pam" - this product is great because the flour is already in the spray so it is way less messy to "grease and flour" your baking pan!  I choose this pan because the corners were really rounded which I was going to need to shape the trailer.

TIP: Always hold your pan low in your sink when you spray it so the over spray is in your sink instead of all over your counter! So simple - but I didn't learn this trick for years! (Sorry - I needed a third hand if I was going to get a shot of my spraying the Pam while taking the picture!)  

When the cake was done cooking, I set it out .  

to cool for ten minutes and then flipped the cake out of the pan onto a cooling rack

While the cake was cooling, I covered a piece of cardboard with some foil to make a base for the cake. When the cake was completely cool, I cut the cake in half across the width. I spread canned vanilla frosting over the bottom of one half of the cake, and then stood the cut- end of the half up on the foil covered board. I then grabbed the other half and pressed the bottom against the frosted side make a cake sandwich that was standing up with cut sides on the bottom, and the frosting in the middle.  The round corners of the pan help form the top rounded 'trailer shape'.

I wanted to make it look like the 'trailer cake' was sitting in a dirt lot.  I spread a then layer of the vanilla frosting around the cake on the foil covered board.  Some caramel corn was perfect for the dirt - I just crushed it and then sprinkled it over the frosting covered board.

Next step - make the frosting gray to match the outside color of Bonnie's Streamline trailer.  They make black food coloring now!  It comes in the regular liquid like the tall cox here or in paste form, like the little containers here. You can buy food coloring in this 'paste' form at Michael's, Sur La Table, and Hobby Lobby.  Using a paste coloring, instead of liquid, gives you the benefit of getting a more saturated color to your frosting,without changing the texture of your frosting.  In this case, I used the liquid black because I needed only a smidgen to make my vanilla frosting turn light gray to simulate the silver Streamline trailer.  I spread the gray frosting over the entire exterior of my cake.

Next I googled "vintage airstream trailer" in Google Images so I would have a visual reference.  My cake trailer needed some windows, so I cut down some squares of candy foil wrap and stuck my "windows and door" directly onto the frosting with the shiny foil side out.  Wrapped Hershey's Nugget candies were perfect for the air conditioner that was on top of the trailer.

I needed a roll out awning to make it look more like a real trailer so I grabbed a bamboo skewer and broke it in half.  I cut a small square of waxed paper out and rolled it around a pencil.  The wax paper held the curl after I took the pencil back out so I placed it on the cake with the two pieces of skewer on either side - the awning looked great!

 I decided to write " Bonnie's or Bust!" on top of the cake and I had some pink squeeze tube frosting which worked perfectly.  I also outlined all the foil pieces and added some other details.

I poked around my baking cupboard to see what else I had that would add some finishing touches - a flamingo candle and a drink umbrella were just what I needed!  What trailer would be complete without a pink flamingo?!

 I used chocolate marshmallows for the tires.  If you have never tried these marshmallows from Williams-Sonoma try them sometime - they take marshmallows to a whole new level!  They are a seasonal item so watch for them. The mallows are individually packaged so they stay fresh for a long time and they are huge! Each mallow is about a 1.5" square cube - I cut two mallows into circles and attached them for my tires.

Voila! My "Trailer Trash Party Cake"!  Bonnie liked it so much she froze it to share at her next party! Whenever I see party goods or baking decorations on sale, like the pink flamingo candle and drink umbrella,  I grab them because you never know creation will need to be made next!