Today is my husband Bob’s birthday and so Courtney and I decided to be daring and attempt a 3D cake of his 1974 VW Bus which Courtney and her friends call “The Twinkie”.  I’m not gonna lie, it was a little tricky but it came out ok, not perfect but not a total loss either.  I baked 2 chocolate pound cakes (see below for recipe) in 2 loaf pans to get a shape similar to the bus; we were going to carve them to be more round but decided to just go with them as is and go for a more cartoon like look.  I frosted them with my stand by Vanilla Buttercream Frosting and then used Duff’s Buttercream Fondant in Orange for the bottom (available at Michaels, tastes great!) and the white buttercream fondant from Funfinity for the top.  Courtney took over from there and made tires, license plates (so cute!), windows, wipers and lights.  It was good practice on a 3D cake for us.  Happy Birthday Sweetie!  Here’s the Chocolate Pound Cake recipe which is from the Hershey cookbook, “Chocolate for Every Season”:

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter

3 eggs

1/2 cup sour cream

1 1/4 cups flour

1/3 cup cocoa

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1 1/4 cups sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

1  Let butter, eggs and sour cream stand at room temperature 30 minutes.  Heat oven to 325.  Grease and flour (I used the Baking Pam instead) 9 x 5 x 3″ loaf pan.

2  Stir together flour, cocoa, baking powder and baking soda.  Beat butter on medium 30 seconds.  Gradually add sugar, beating about 10 minutes or until very light and fluffy.  Beat in vanilla.  Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating 1 minute after each.  Add flour mixture and sour cream alternately to beaten mixture, beating after each addition just until combined.  Pour into prepared pan.

3  Bake 60 – 70 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean.  Cool in pan 10 minutes then remove from pan to cool completely.