VROOOOM~ We have had A LOT of requests for car cakes, truck cakes, and MONSTER truck cakes. I am so happy that we finally have a video for this! We will make other car/truck videos in the future, but I think that this Monster Truck video is helpful no matter what type of vehicle you are making. This is a two part video.
In Part 1, you will learn to make the platform for the truck, as well as how to carve the cake and cover with fondant. Please see supply list and main points below the video—I hope that you enjoy it!
******This video starts with Mom building the platform. Don’t let this step scare you from making this cake—:0) –An easy alternative would be to cover a block of styrofoam with black fondant (or black plastic tablecloth) to give the illusion of space beneath the cake. I would use melted candy melts to glue the styrofoam to the cake base (or even “real” glue).
MONSTER TRUCK CAKE-Materials
9×13 cake layer
Loaf cake -Ours is 8 3/8″ x 4 3/8″ (use whatever you have)
cake cardboard or foam core (which you’ll later cut to the size of the cake)
Ganache (We used a 2:1 ratio of chocolate to cream–simple spreadable ganache)
Fondant- I used Duff’s pre-colored blue fondant to cover the truck. Black pre-colored Satin Ice fondant for strip around base of cake. Grey fondant for bumper, grill and misc accents. Pale
yellow fondant for lights. Yellow, Orange and Red for flames.
Rice Cereal Treats- You could make your own Rice Krispies Treats but we used premade for our tires. We used 6 of the 22 gram RKTs per tire! Then at the end of the video we used 4 more pieces to
boost our tires a little higher.
Chocolate Royal Icing & crushed chocolate and/or honey graham cookies–*Optional–this is what I used for MUD and dirt.
Frosting Sheet/Edible image printer–OPTIONAL– I printed off the truck’s name.
FMM Multi Ribbon Cutter- Optional — I use this for easily cutting uniform strips of fondant.
Misc~Tylose (optional, I like to knead a little into decorative fondant pieces), Sugar Glue (aka tylose glue) or your “glue” of choice, X-acto or other sharp knife, “The Mat”-optional–I
demonstrate laying my fondant using this method, vodka (or lemon extract) for painting, misc paintbrushes (optional), toothpicks, coloring gels of your choice for fondant accents or any
“painting” that you may do with vodka. I painted our windows with a black coloring gel/vodka paint. Silver Highlighter-
WOODEN PLATFORM Materials: We made a sturdy wooden platform to create the space beneath the cake. An easier alternative would be to cover a styrofoam block with black fondant or a black plastic tablecloth to create the illusion of space.
18″x20″ wooden board that is 1/2 inch thick (Covered the top with a brown plastic tablecloth)
6″x8″ wooden board
hand drill
4 6×1″ screws
Wooden dowel (1/2 inch thick) cut into four 4″ sections. They will cut for you at home improvement store. (*later we wished these were 3 1/2″ to better fit the size of our tires. Ideally, the top of the tires will be slightly taller than your platform.
Basic Cake Notes/Details
Single 9×13 cake layer and a loaf pan (White Almond Sour Cream recipe)
Split the 9×13 in half, dam & fill with buttercream and stack. (It’s on it’s own cake board)
Trim down loaf cake to form the cab of the truck.
Carve away pieces of cake to form the hood.
Add scrap pieces of the loaf cake to form the bed of the truck (*optional–you could just keep it flat)
Ganache over everything
Cover with blue fondant
Fantastic job! Love it. You both make a great team!!
I noticed you cover your boards with plastic table cloths. Do you have any problems when cutting the cake that it rips? Can you get it tight enough where it doesn’t rip when covering the board? Just curious, always looking for a cheaper alternative instead of the foil all the time.
Awesome! Thanks y’all for doing this tutorial. I have been asked to do a monster truck and this was very helpful! Thanks!
Hi Peggy, the cake is always on a cake board so no problem.
Could you please tell me the brand of the cutter used to make the tires? I love those and would love to look into getting a set. Thanks so much :)
Thanks for the nice comments! @Cathy~ We have a Sur La Table locally where I bought my cutters, but here’s the link if you’d like to order online–
http://www.surlatable.com/product/PRO-15441/Stainless-Steel-Reversible-Biscuit-Cutters%2C-Set-of-6
Here’s the link to the chocolate royal icing if you all are looking for it–
https://www.mycakeschool.com/recipes/chocolate-royal-icing/
Ummmm I can’t see either of the truck video on my ipad???
Hi Lori– Re-embedded in a different browser and I think that solved it–let me know!
YEAHHHH thank you so much Melissa! I really love them and have been looking for them :) I will be ordering them today lol.
Thank you I can see it now
YEAH!! Thank You for making a video like this! Can’t wait to sit down and watch it all the way through! :-)
Angela Barton
I am sooooo happy you made this video : ) I recently tried to make a monster truck and it was a disaster!!!! Thank you so much!!!!!
Where do i find part 2 am i missing something ?
I could have used this a few months ago…made a Optimus Prime cake for a little boy….it was a cross between Big Foot Monster Truck and Mater from the movie Cars…good job Melissa!!!
Thanks again everybody–it’s so nice to hear that you liked the video and will be able to put it to good use! :0) —
@Tami–here’s the link to Part 2 in case you haven’t already found it~
https://www.mycakeschool.com/video-tutorials/monster-truck-cake-video-part-2/
Thanks Melissa! We ask and you present it to us! Can’t wait to see the full tutorial on this cake!
Where do you buy “The Mat”?
Hi Cindy, we bought our from sweetwise.com here is a link http://sweetwise.com/mat-featured-product/the-mat.html. There are two demonstration videos to watch also
I can’t see part one on my IPad
Hi Ghada— Thanks, I just checked with mom (who also has an ipad) and she is getting a white screen for this one too. Usually, I can re-embed the video and magically make things better again….but if you can hang on until tomorrow, Viddler is going to try to duplicate the issue (or pinpoint it) on their end before I make this correction. This will help to prevent this in the future with other videos—
However, if you need this video tonight, let me know!
No problem. I’ll check back tomorrow. Thanks so much.
Melissa, i made this cake and my grandson loved it but , i used Wilton fondant and it cracked can you help me , i was so disappointed
How do you cover cakes this large for transporting?
i made this for my brothers 50th birthday he was totally over the moon going to try more of your cakes keep up the good work
photo.php?fbid=3687967639459&set=a.3687967439454.2170222.1283244168&type=1&theater
Could I use buttercream to cover the entire truck instead of the ganache?
Hi Acerola, yes that would be fine
Hi Melissa, how many does this cake serve? I’ve watched the video but don’t remember it mentioned. Will it serve 20 and how would you suggest cutting it.
Hi, we cut the cake and got 25 to 28 slices. I cut slices from the top of the truck first then divided the cake lengthwise …….the truck was 6 inches wide and my slices were 1 x 3.
How much would you charge for this cake? Hard for me to calculate a quote since I haven’t made one and dont quite know how long it will take me! HELP!
I’m making this cake now and will cover and decroate it tomorrow. I cant seem to find the flames can you tell me where I can find them? This is going to be a cool cake for a very special 4 year old……. Thanks for posting it. LOVE your site!!!!
How many does this cake serve?
Hi Beverly, I answer this above in a April 10, 2012 entry :)
i am so thankful for these videos! i will be making this for my grandson’s 6th bday this week! am very excited!
do you remember about how much ganache was needed for this?
thank you :)
Hi Lynn, thank you for your nice comment on the videos. I think I used two 10 oz. packages of Ghirardelli Chocolate Baking Chips 60 % cacao. I think there was leftover ganache but I didn’t make notes on this. So whatever chocolate you like to use ….20 ounces and 10 ounces heavy cream (I weigh my amounts) should be plenty. Hope all goes smoothly and I know your grandson will love this cake!!
this was such a fun project! my grandson was very happy. :) due to his allergies the cake i used for the loaf pan was dairy/gluten free. i made legos, making a silicone mould and then popping out various colored legos. i loaded the bed of the truck with them. it was so cute. he was a happy little guy! i am making another for this weekend. my daughter and her fiance have a group that have remote control four-wheel vehicles that they take out to do “crawling” competitions. this weekends is the last of the season, and they thought this cake would be a nice finishing touch. i will try and remember to post pics of the two. thank you again. Lynn
oh, i use canned coconut milk as a sub for the cream in the ganache, due to my grandson’s allergies, and it works just great! :)
Hi Lynn- I’m so glad that you made this (and another this weekend)! It must have been adorable with the legos in back. ;0) Thanks so much for your feedback and I’m glad to know that the canned coconut works well in place of cream! We would love to see photos sometime, thanks for your post!
I am so excited to get to use this video. My grandson ask for a monster cake crashing into a brick wall and a dinosaur driving. I saw the dinosaur in another and that would be cute. Suggestion on how to have the dino driving? Also, when buying Duff’s blue fondant, how much do I buy. Does his fondant taste good. My grandson loves marshmallow fondant, but not the store bought.
Hi Melissa,
What do you think of doing this cake in modeling chocolate instead of fondant? Would it work as well?
Hi paintmycake~ I rarely use modeling chocolate to cover my cakes– We have a tutorial for a modeling chocolate wrap…but that’s about it. Since I started working with Liz Marek fondant a couple of years ago, I liked the taste & elasticity of it so much that I stopped looking for new alternatives.
I like Modeling chocolate more for accents than to cover cakes. It has a nice flavor but is more sensitive to heat and doesn’t have the stretch that fondant has. The sensitivity to heat is a bonus when you have a seam or imperfection that you can simply rub away with the heat of your hand. The downside is that in the summertime, a hot kitchen or outdoor event can make things a bit more difficult. Handling it too much can also heat the modeling chocolate too much, causing excessive softening & oiliness. (If this happens you can just allow to cool or even pop in the fridge). – It’s also more likely to tear than fondant because it doesn’t have the elasticity.
My vote would be either fondant or a combination of modeling chocolate and fondant. You could use maybe a 60/40 proportion of fondant to modeling chocolate. This would give you a happy medium. (Test the proportion in a sample size to make sure you are happy with it) ;0) – Hope this helps!
What size board and cake would you recommend for 40 servings? Also I’m trying to make it look like the monster truck is going on dirt with one tire to give it a gravity defying illusion. Any tips on how I would go about doing this? Love your videos by the way!!
Hi Katie, This monster truck cake using a 9 x 13 pan will feed 25 to 28 with 1 x 3 inch slices. I think you should be able to serve 40 using a 11 x 15 size pan. Just follow Melissa video making adjustments where needed since your pan is larger. Our wooden cake board is 18 x 20, you could make yours this size also or larger depending on how much mud (chocolate frosting) you want to add to the board. We have not tried a gravity deifying truck so I cannot not say for sure how that will work. If you do not want to construct the wooden platform you could cover a styrofoam block in black fondant or black plastic and the truck on several cake boards will rest on that. This is a very time consuming cake so anything that you can do in advance such as wheels, decals, baking in advance will be very helpful. If this is for a customer, please factor in all the extras as well as time when charging. Hope all goes well.
Hello Melissa! Where can i get the chocolate royal icing recipe that you used in this tutorial? I couldn’t located under recipes. TIA
Hi Maria! Thanks for your comment. I had forgotten that we used chocolate royal icing in this video and deleted the recipe from our recipes section back when we removed our old cookie decorating video tutorial. Ack! Anyway, SugarBelle’s chocolate royal icing recipe would have been the one that we referred to–here is a link!:
http://www.sweetsugarbelle.com/2012/02/chocolate-royal-icing/
The part 1 of the video stops playing at 2:59. I replayed twice from the beginning but can’t get 2:59.
I had problems with the bag video too, the sound ceased after sometime and didn’t come back on.
Hi Jamila- I’m sorry that you are having issues! I am able to play the video as usual past the 2:59 mark on my computer but I’ve made an update that may help you. If you continue to have inconsistent viewing issues, it could be a sign that something on your computer/device needs an update. This may be a browser update, or an update to your adobe flash player. Please e-mail us at info@Mycakeschool.com if you continue to have issues and so we can get a bit more info about your trouble. Thanks!!
Thank you so much for the inspiration! I made this for my nephew’s 3rd birthday and it was a hit!
Yay! So glad that you made it, Joyce! Your cake looks fantastic!
Here’s my truck. Thank you for all your tips……especially the board. I know fondant looks smoother but I love buttercream.
Again ty
Hi Ann, Great work on this cake, your truck looks terrific! I’m sure Victor was thrilled with this special cake! Thanks so much for posting your picture!
What was the thickness of the board?
Hi Barb, I am sorry we didn’t list that detail. It is a heavy cake when completed, you should use a 1/2 inch board.
Thanks for your inspiration to do a Monster Truck cake. Your video was so helpful. Attaching a photo of the cake I did.
It looks amazing! Thanks so much for sharing!
Wow, Beautiful work, I love it! The person getting this is so lucky!!
HELP!!
There is no reference as to the quanity of fondant needed for the blue monster truck. Please get back so I can make the truck this weekend/December 18-19th December.
Hi Christine- I’m sorry about that- I would say approximately 2-2.5 lbs of the shade that you’re covering the cake with and less than a pound for the accents.