Schoolbus Cake

Do your kids have the end of summer blues? I'm Lee Woodruff in the kitchen with Family Fun. Getting kids excited to go back to school is a piece of cake with this clever school bus.

You'll need two loaf cakes, pancake or banana bread work well, two cups of white frosting, yellow food coloring, white chocolate chips, four mini chocolate covered donuts, round cookie wafers, black decorating gel, small red gumdrops, and red hots. Trim the sides and top of one cake to straighten them. Spread a bit of frosting on to the center of a serving plate and set the trimmed cake upside down on top of it to keep it from sliding. Now, take the second cake and trim the sides and top. Then slice off a one and a half inch thick piece from one end and use the rest of the cake for the top of the bus. Just frost the bottom and set it on top of the first cake. Spread a thin layer of white frosting over the whole cake to seal in the crumbs and let it set for about fifteen minutes. Spread more white frosting on the sides of the top layer to make the windows of the bus. Reserve about a teaspoon of white frosting, then tint the rest yellow and use it to frost the rest of the bus. For tires, use dabs of frosting to attach white chocolate chip hub caps, tips down, to the centers of the mini doughnuts and then to stick the tires onto the bus. Transform cookie wafers into people using white frosting and black gel to create eyes. Trim some red gum drops for smiles, then press the cookie faces onto the cake. We're almost done! Get creative with things like black gel details, red hots for caution lights, and white chocolate chip headlights. Planning a costume party? This fun cake is sure to earn an A+.