Choo Choo Fun

There's nothing more joyous to a mother than to see her child smile.  My little boy turns 3 in a few days and this cake brought out the biggest smile I have ever seen from him.  There's a part of childhood that never goes away in each of us.  Why else do we still refer to a train as choo-choo train when we live in the age of bullet trains (aka The Shinkansen in Japan)? Why do all the songs still go "chugga chugga choo choo" when the latest and greatest in this line barely makes a swoosh sound?  We do this not because we are a generation apart, but because we want to share with the new generation all the things fun and lively from our past.   We want to let our minds roll to places where the chugging sound of a train billowing out smoke beckons us to wave bye bye or jump up and down in glee.  May the happy parts of our childhood never perish and may our imaginations always soar new heights...

The above cake was a mellow lemon with whipped icing.  The engine was assembled in layers and then hand carved.  The wheels were everyone's favorite Oreo cookies.   The chimney was an ice cream cone (the smoke added as a cartoon since it was too hot for the intended ice cream to stay in shape).  With a licorice stick to join the compartments and goodies like M&M's to haul, this was built to bring joy and fun to all!