Lemon Vanilla Choo-Choo Train Cake

Cookbook Adventure #12 - Party Cakes for kids

This is more a cookbook decoration adventure than a cookbook recipe adventure (since the recipe required "1 1/2 packets of cake mix".) But who needs cake mix when you've got a Thermomix?!

I was given the link to Thermomix Never Fail Cupcakes and converted it to a whole cake recipe with a few tweaks to the method and some additions.

Here is my Thermotalk version:

Ingredients 
250g raw sugar
rind of 1 lemon
340g butter
6 eggs
400g self raising flour
2tbs milk
2tsp vanilla extract

Method
Preheat oven to 180C. Grease and line cake tins. I used a 9cm x 22cm x 7cm loaf tin and a 20cm x 30cm x 5cm cake tin.
Place sugar and lemon rind into TM bowl. Grind on speed 8 for 3 seconds. Add butter and mix for 2 minutes on speed 4. Scrape down sides and mix for a further 1 minute on speed 4 until light and creamy.
Add eggs one at a time whilst the TM is on speed 4. Scrape down sides after adding 3 eggs and then continue adding remaining eggs one at a time.
Add flour, milk and vanilla essence.
Mix on speed 4 for 30 seconds.
Place into tins. Bake until golden on top and skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean - the loaf tin took about 25 minutes and the larger cake tin about 35 minutes.
Once baked leave for 5 minutes and then remove from tins and cool on racks before icing.
(This recipe can be halved.)

For the icing I used a Thermomix conversion of a copha-buttercream icing from Gastronomy. The icing was a bit stiff and hard to work with for a winter birthday but I would have no hesitation at using it in summer (when it's been 40C outside) and my previous attempts at a pure buttercream icing have been a melty mess!

Happy Birthday Sam!