My nephew turned 5 recently and swore he wanted a circuit board cake. At the 11th hour he decided he wanted a car cake instead. Online searches for car cakes yielded a lot of lameness and ugly-ass cakes, so I winged it. Wung it? Whatever. I figured something out, and was pretty pleased when it actually, totally looked like a car.

I know the icing isn’t perfect here- that’s the beauty of making something for a person who is only 5. Perfection is not what they’re after. They are after copious amounts of frosting and candy on a cake that’s shaped like something other than a cake, which makes them pretty easy to please. I think the biggest compliment came when, after admiring the cake for several minutes, my nephew turned to my Dad and with saucer eyes and his jaw hanging open, and said- “GRAMPA- do you realize this CAR is EATABLE?!?!?”

Eatable indeed! I made this somewhat nasty hot pink strawberry cake in a 9×13 pan and then cut a third of it off, lengthwise. Then I cut the long skinny piece I had in half perpendicular. Like this:

I flipped the 2 pieces 90 degrees and set them next to each other on top of the remaining large cake and stuck them on with frosting. They were kind of slope-y which actually made it look more like a car. I wanted really sturdy, fluffy frosting for this, so I used a fluffy meringue frosting (my mom made it so I’m not sure how- something about like this) and tinted it blue to attach the cake pieces and cover the whole thing in gobs and gobs of icing. I made a little bit of white royal icing for the windows, doors, and writing. Tic-tacs for lights and blinkers, oreos for wheels, sour belts for racing stripes and windshield wipers, some weird white tootsie rolls for the bumpers, and voila! A car that any 5-year-old would love.

My mom calls this an apple cake-pie, but I don’t know why. She has been making it since I was a kid. It’s delicious! The hardest part is peeling and cutting the apples, which I hate. I mean, really hate it. Like, if you want to come over and peel and cut the apples I will make you this cake and we can each eat half!

Apple Upside-Down Cake

Ingredients:

• 3 apples, peeled, cored, and sliced
• 2 T soft butter
• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• big pinch of cinnamon
• 1 c flour
• 2/3 c sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 1/4 cup shortening
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup milk (I actually didn’t have enough milk, so I used a little milk and the rest plain yogurt, with no discernible difference.)

Method:

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
• Spread butter into bottom and sides of a pie plate. Sprinkle with brown sugar and cinnamon.
• Layer the sliced apples in the pan. You can lay the apples in the pan all pretty and layered so that when you flip it out it looks professional, OR you can just throw them in which is a lot quicker.
• Put all of the rest of the ingredients in a bowl, and mix them in an electric mixer for about 2 minutes.
• Pour batter over apples and bake at 350 for 40-45 minutes.
• Remove from oven and cool for 5 minutes. Run a knife around the side of the plate, and carefully dump over onto the serving plate.
• Serve hot or at room temp with ice cream or whipped cream.

I made Heidi’s Salt-Kissed Buttermilk Cake from 101Cookbooks last week, and want to encourage you to try it! The cake came out incredibly moist and delicious, and was easy to make.

I made it as a dessert, which was OK, but I think it would be an absolute knock-out for brunch. Next time I’m going to cover the entire top with berries. I used big smooshy blackberries and wished I had one in every bite!