Gravedigger Monster Truck Birthday Cake

It's my son's birthday tomorrow, and he requested a Gravedigger birthday cake.  For those of you that have know me, know that I go all out for birthday cakes, if you didn't know, like the Birthday Cake tab above to see my past cakes. :)  This one I'm quite proud of, it turned out awesome!

Below is kind of a step by step for you, so you know how I did it. Anyone can do this, if I did.  I've never taken a cake decorating class, I just want to make my boys cakes as amazing as possible.

What you need:

2 batches of rice crispy treats (using Erewhon GF Brown Rice Cereal, 8 cups of cereal to one 10oz bag of marshmallows and 2 tablespoons of margarine)

2 batches of chocolate marshmallow fondant (I used 1/2-3/4 cup of cocoa, mixed right in with the powdered sugar, to make it chocolate)

1 cake, cooked in 2 loaf pans (I used King Arthur's GF Chocolate Cake, because I had a box in the pantry)

1 batch of buttercream frosting

Various food colorings, I used Wilton Icing Colors

Paintbrushes (one's that haven't been used before, or used for food projects)

 Make the rice crispy treats and form into 4 large wheels, and engine base (above) and the mud ramp (below).

 Bake the cake, let it cool, and then freeze it. It's much easier to cut and shape when it's frozen.

Cover the rice crispy treats with rolled fondant.  Rub with extra cocoa to make it look 'dirty'

 I did the green suspension by pipe some colored buttercream into the engine block.

 To shape the cake, it's a lot of freehand.  And patience, I wish I could better explain what I did, but it's nothing fantastic it, it's just looking at a toy car and shaping a two layer loaf pan cake to resemble it.  Once it's shaped frost it with the buttercream. (I actually have the cake sitting on a piece of cardboard the same shape for extra support, too)

 Cover the frosted cake with rolled fondant and place on top of the engine block.

 Then with all of the patience you can muster, sit down and paint the truck.  I created paints by combining the icing colors with mint extract.  You want alcohol not water to dilute the colors, the water will melt the fondant and make it sticky.

 When you are finally done, no matter how it turns out, enjoy the shock and joy on your kid's face when they get to enjoy the coolest cake ever!