John Deere Cake

Let's just say even though I am from KY, I did not grow up on a farm or in the country as most people would guess. I was more of a city girl being 5 minutes outside of Cincinnati. So when asked to do a John Deere themed cake by my friend Traci for her son's birthday I was super excited about the idea, yet really had never been up close to a piece of John Deere equipment.

KY is known for its horse farms and of course the KY Derby so this is kind of what I used to pull some inspiration for this cake idea. If you have never been to KY just imagine rolling hills and hundreds of acres of the most vibrant green grass lined with white fences. It is absolutely beautiful. So to create a farm like atmosphere for the John Deere tractor that was going to be my cake topper, I decided to cover the cake in rolled fondant that I tinted green to resemble a field. Along the edges of the cake I used brown fondant that I cut into strips to create a fence structure. To pull everything together I piped some buttercream grass blades around the base of the cake. All of these elements came together pretty easy.

The John Deere tractor was a different story. Let's just say what I had pictured in my head and what turned out to be the end result are two completely different tractors! My original plan was to sculpt a tractor out of rice cereal treats like they do on Ace of Cakes or the Cake Challenge shows. All I have to say is I've got a lot to learn about this technique. I am not an artist and definitely not a sculptor so trying to carve a 3D shape out of a block of cereal was not such an easy task. After two failed attempts of what turned out to look like an oversized, lopsided and lumpy car I threw in the towel on the rice cereal. So plan 3 or C whichever way you look at it, turned out to be an all fondant tractor which you see in the picture above.

The tractor looked a little lonely on the cake by itself so I thought it would be fun to create a cow to add a little more excitement. Luckily I remembered how to do this from when my friend Evan taught me how to make farm animals. The birthday boy actually thought it was a dog. Either way it's a spotted animal right?

So there you have it, the John Deere tractor and farm cake!

If anyone has tips or tricks for carving elements out of rice cereal treats send them my way! I would love to figure out how to make this work next time!