David's Dump Truck Cake. Step by step pictures. Super easy to do!! - The Lazy Vegan Baker

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Sunday we celebrated my nephew David’s 2nd birthday and so I made a cake just for him [I’m not ALWAYS lazy, but really, this cake was pretty simple to assemble =)].  Like most 2yr old boys, he’s obsessed with trucks, so I knew I wanted to make a truck cake.  I went on Pinterest to get some inspiration and got so inspired, I went through at least five different ideas (there are so many awesome truck cake pictures!) before arriving at this design which is a combination of several.  I was getting frustrated about the pictures though because none of them gave instructions for how to make the cakes.  I ended up zooming in as much as I could and trying to figure out each element of the cakes and how they were put together.  Kinda annoying.  So, I decided to document my attempt (whether it was a success or failure, it would still be helpful I guess!).

I took pictures of all the steps as I cut and decorated the cake.  The cake recipe I used was this pound cake doubled, except I made it vanilla instead of lemon, and I added a whole bag of chocolate chips because David said he wanted chocolate chips.  The frosting is this cream cheese frosting recipe, except again, I made it vanilla.  I made a giant 12″ cake, so I could cut the body out of it, and 8 cupcakes, although I only ended up using seven.

Decoration items I used:  multi-color jellybeans, multi-color gumdrops, chocolate sprinkles, and black licorice.  I thought about using M&M’s in place of the jelly beans but my niece said jelly beans were better (and she wasn’t kidding – I think she ate all the jelly beans off the cake!).  You will also need a 16″ square cake board and food coloring in your desired colors.

12″ cake round, blank canvas

First cut. Making the body of the truck. Remove the smaller portion and set it aside. It will be used later to make the truck cab.

Second cut. Shaping the truck body. (and lots of extra pieces for snacking! =)

Take the smaller piece of the large cake that you had set aside in the beginning. Make the cab of the truck by cutting out an L shape. Save the small triangle left at the bottom of the L, as it will be used for the connector piece.

A mock up of what the cake will look like (and making sure I had all the pieces!)

I cut all the cake pieces in 1/2 and frosted the layers.

Doing the crumb coat for the truck body. A crumb coat is a thin layer of frosting that is spread on the cake, to keep all the crumbs stuck to it. Refrigerate the cake at least 30 minutes before doing the second layer of frosting. I used Wilton food coloring – yellow for this section.

The cake after being refrigerated with crumb coat. Can you see the difference in the frosting. After being refrigerated, the frosting is denser and cohesive, and makes a much smoother surface to do the final frosting.

The second frosting of the truck body. Super bright yellow!
I frosted the top of the truck body with chocolate frosting (I added 3oz melted chocolate to a portion of the white frosting as food coloring). This is the dirt in the back of the dump truck.
Tip: To make a smooth surface, after you are done spreading the frosting to your liking, dip your spatula in water and then spread over the cake.

A closer up picture of the “dirt” in the dump truck.

Frosting the cab of the truck.

Frosting the connector piece.

Decorating the cupcakes. 3 of the cupcakes are wheels, and so I used gumdrops as wheel rims. I sprinkled jelly beans over 4 of the cupcakes as rocks and stones, and later I added chocolate sprinkles too. (oh, I frosted them with the chocolate frosting first!)

And then all that was left to do, was assemble the cake on the cardboard. I used a cake board that was 16″ sq. The pieces are all just touching each other. I used black licorice as the outline for the truck body, smokestack for the truck cab and as detailing at the bottom. I used one yellow gumdrop as a headlight. And I piped some chocolate frosting in a square on the cab to make a window.

Another picture of the finished cake.

Close up of the finished truck body.