Lightning McQueen Birthday Cake

Little V-man absolutely loves "Cars" the movie and all things Lightning McQueen. For his birthday this year, I took it upon myself to attempt to make fondant and put together a little McQueen cake.

I knew it was a success when I finished and V-man saw it and screamed "Lightning McQueen CAKE!" Those are always happy moments, as he was the biggest critic in this case.

I made a simple cake using my classic Chocolate Cake recipe. Then filled it and frosted it with Almond Buttercream Frosting prior to applying the fondant. This helped the fondant to seal into place and stay put.  

I used a recipe for Marshmallow Fondant that I found on allrecipes. One of the comments, however, mentioned using marshmallow cream instead of melting the marshmallows. That is what I ended up doing, leaving out the water in the recipe and adding the food-coloring into the marshmallow cream. After kneading it all together with shortening-coated hands and freezing for about 1/2 hour, the fondant was ready to use!

Since I'm not an avid cake-decorator (I prefer cupcakes), I totally just placed V-man's Lightning McQueen car on the top to make it authentic. That worked for us!

This is a REALLY easy cake decorating idea if you're just starting out with fondant. Try it out sometime!