In ANOTHER moment of insanity, I bought the train cake pan at Williams-Sonoma. I decided to launch it for my houseguests after Christmas. The recipe is a simple vanilla cake batter, and the pan does the rest. I made the cake (train cars) the night before, and kept them refigerated in tupperware over night. Now for the fun part…decorating the Christmas train.

I collected various candies as soon as I bought the pan, as well as “point and shoot” cans of frosting, licorice for the tracks, cookie Christmas trees, and a good supply of powdered sugar for “snow”. Each car would be different, and it would give me something fun to do as my guests were making their way south from Fresno through holiday traffic on I-5!

Here are close-ups of the cars:

Everyone enjoyed the train as centerpiece on my kitchen table, but I had so many other desserts each night our guests were here, that we never ATE THE DAMN TRAIN!

Brad and had a silly conversation one night thinking of other themes for the cake pan:

A Slow Travel Train
Circus Train with animal crackers
International Train (flags from different countries)
Wine Train
Patriotic Train

It will probably be a while before I do this again.