Yesterday my Mom and I made my nephew the happiest 3 year old alive.  We made him a “Macko Cako” or as we adults would call it a “Mack Cake”.  My nephew has many varied interested that change on a daily basis, but one constant is Cars.  He very quickly became attached to Mack, the truck.  He always giggles and talks to Mack when he’s watching the movie.  He also has at least two Mack Lego sets at home.  He’s Mack’s biggest fan.

To honor Deano’s love of Mack we vowed to make him a Mack cake for his birthday.  My mom invested in a Wilton long loaf pan (essential for making Mack), and a Wilton decorating set.  While we didn’t use that much out of the decorating set, the tips/bags were helpful.  Thankfully Mack is mostly red, not too many colors involved.  Although I can definitely recommend this red food coloring.  You add it to butter cream frosting and you can’t taste the food coloring at all.  He did involve a few accessories: Dots, M&Ms, chocolate creme sandwich cookies, Oreo Funstix, Kit Kat, and metallic silver sprinkles.

I wish I had step by step instructions and photos, however making the cake was quite stressful and we (stupidly) waited until that afternoon to start decorating. I’ve compiled what I can for you below, but in hindsight can offer quite a few suggestions.  Make sure you use white or yellow cake, so you have white crumbs mixing with frosting, not chocolate.  Make sure the cake you do choose is good and frozen before you start slicing it up.  It makes it a lot less crumbly.  If it starts to thaw, put it back in the freezer for a few more minutes.  Also make your frosting ahead of time and allow it to chill.  If the frosting is too runny it will start to slowly slide down the cake.  Lastly, go into it with patience and a steady hand.  Luckily most young children can see the “big picture” without nit-picking details. We were treated to the giggles and smiles a very happy three year old.  It makes it worth all the hard work and stresses.

Cars Mack Cake
  • 1 large loaf cake (using desired cake mix), frozen
  • 2 batches of homemade butter cream frosting
  • Red, yellow and white food coloring
  • 1 Kit Kat bar
  • 1 small bag of M&Ms
  • 1 box of chocolate sandwich cookies
  • 1 small box Dots
  • 1 box Oreo Funsticks
  • Silver sprinkles
  • decorating tips/bags
  • 1 large cake board
  • 4 plastic cups, cut into 1" tall discs
Cooking Directions

To assemble the cake, cut off 4-6 inches from your loaf pan and shape into Mack's cab. Looking at various pictures of Mack will help you best with the shaping. Make sure to flatten his top and use another cutout piece for his hat. By inserting a graham cracker between the top of the cake and the "hat piece" you can create the bill of the hat. You should also cut off the top of the remaining loaf cake so his trailer is flat. Place cab under one plastic cup disc, and the trailer under the remaining three. This gives Mack his raised look so he looks to be standing on his wheels.

Make one batch of frosting red. Use this to frost the entire cake, leaving only space for white frosting eyes and white on the front of his hat. Split the remaining batch between white and yellow. Using a small tip fill in Mack's eyes, hat and draw a mouth. Use both the white and yellow to decorate the trailer accordingly. You can look at pictures of the real Mack and try to recreate his trailer, or write "happy birthday" with lightning bolts. Totally up to you!

Once frosted as desired, place cookie sandwiches (with white/silver sprinkled rims) on sides, place "smoke stack" cookie sticks behind cab, and use Kit Kat for side mirrors and a front grill. Place Dots for headlights and taillights, and M&Ms for eyeballs. We chose to sprinkle some remaining silver sprinkles to look like gravel. If you feel so inclined to decorate a road or place other Cars characters around the cake board, please do. Every small touch adds to the cake!