I was tasked with making the tractor cake, which had to be John Deere green, no other colour would do so I turned to the good old internet to do some research. It's amazing that when you type 'tractor birthday cake' into the search engines that 99% are green and yellow!
After looking around a bit I got an idea of what to do and this is how I did it. The main body of the tractor is a sponge cake baked in a loaf tin. When cool I cut a piece of the end for the cab, split it, put jam and buttercream in the centre and then covered in green fondant. I did the same with the larger section and then attached the 'cab' to the top with more buttercream.
The wheels were made by cutting out circles of sponge cake, covering in black fondant and adding yellow fondant the centre of them for the distinct 'John Deere' look. Black fondant was also used for the windows and radiator and the amber beacons were orange jelly sweets. The exhaust was made by attaching a chocolate finger biscuit as you can see from the photo.
My daughter was really pleased with her cake, although as usual I could find some niggles. I'm never completely happy with my efforts. I'm just glad that I didn't have to do the cow cake! She was extremely lucky as a friend from her college made her one, as did her older sister. What a spoilt girl but she had a great birthday weekend which is the main thing :-)
