Patrick's 20th Birthday - Train Cake

Note: super awesomely cool pictures of an orange dreamsicle-flavored train cake will be uploaded shortly. Using Chris' camera=uploading pictures to Chris' computer=waiting for him to play with them before I get to put them up! Stay tuned!

Patrick is my brother. He lives with me. He turned 20 yesterday, and in honor of the celebration of his day of birth, I wanted to make him a cake.

Here's our conversation:

Katie:
Patrick, what kind of cake do you want me to make for your birthday?

Patrick:
I don't care.

Katie:
No, really, what kind do you want? Chocolate, Vanilla, Red Velvet?

Patrick:
Um, I don't care.

Katie:
Patrick, just pick a flavor.

Patrick:
I don't know!

Katie:
Seriously! What kind of cake do you want to eat?!

Patrick, sipping his orange soda:
Orange soda flavor!

Katie:
?? Orange? Okay. That wasn't so hard, was it? How do you want me to decorate it?

Patrick:
I don't know.

Katie:
What do you want it to look like?

Patrick:
I don't know!

Katie:
You're so annoying! Just pick something!

Patrick:
Fine, then! I want it to be a train because trains are freaking awesome. Whoo whoo!

Katie:
????

I suppose this deserves a little explanation. Patrick bought some train horns (yes, exactly what you think they are) and installed them on his car from a website called hornblasters.com. He spent a lot of money to install big, loud horns on his car so he can drive around downtown Lexington on Friday and Saturday nights and honk in crowded areas just to watch people's reactions. The reactions are pretty funny, but I think it's silly and sort of mean. But, he really, really enjoys his horns so I suppose that's all that matters.

Anyway, so I perused orange flavor cakes for a while on the internet until I came across a recipe for an Orange Dreamsicle Flavor Cake - you remember those popsicles that are orange on the outside and creamy vanilla on the inside? Yea... So that's what I made. After the cake was out of the oven the recipe told me to boil 2 cups of orange jello and pour it over the cake, then chill it so the gelatin/cake would set. I added some almond extract to the whole thing to give it a little more deliciousness, and covered it in cream cheese frosting! YUM.

As luck would have it, my mom *actually owns* a train-shaped cake pan, which was an amazing help, considering the headache that it actually was to make it. I was trying too many techniques, and should have kept it simpler. Also, the cake came out SUPER gooey, so the train sort of lost its shape. All in all, it took me about 4 1/2 hours to get the whole cake done, which a ridiculously long time to make something that looks like it does. I was sort of disappointed, but Patrick certainly wasn't. He loved it!