Tank Cake

Here is the birthday cake I made for my wonderful boyfriend this year. Each year I like to make him a themed birthday cake that has to do with something he likes. I have never asked him what design he would like on his cake, as I prefer it to be a surprise. Although this year I did ask what flavor cake he would like, and he decided on something different than the typical chocolate – butter pecan, with a hint of chocolate. I also asked, just for fun, what design he would like, telling him I had already decided and planned it, and that his answer wouldn’t change anything. Ironically (or not, because I guess I do know him pretty well) he said a tank cake, as he is an avid collector of model tanks. He gave me an exact model type too, but I know a lot less about tanks and didn’t think I could pull off that much detail.

 I suppose I kind of broke tradition with his cake this year, because for the past three years I have made a chocolate cake with vanilla buttercream in the design of a video game character using an eight bit pixel design with the main colors of the cake being green. This cake is not exclusively chocolate or vanilla buttercream, is not divided into squares, contains no characters, and has no green. But it is not totally breaking tradition because this cake is themed to my boyfriend’s tastes and was made and decorated with love.

Shaping a cake like a tank is actually pretty simple – all you need is three standard-sized pans: a 9x13-inch rectangular pan, a 9x5-inch loaf pan, and a round ramekin. Filling these three cake pans requires slightly more batter than provided by a standard two layer cake mix; I used a recipe designed to fill three 9-inch round layer pans. Use your favorite flavor, bake as usual, cool, then trim off any uneven edges and rounded tops. You will also need to cut out a small rectangle, approximately four inches long and one and a half inches wide, two inches from either end of the cake, on one short side of the 9x13 –inch rectangular cake. Cut this piece in half horizontally. One half will be used for the barrel, the other half is to test the quality of your cake (eat it). Frost each layer individually, then stack as pictured, adding and smoothing frosting around the edges. You will need a support for the barrel – I used a chocolate kiss, but a mound of icing or other chocolate would do the trick as well.

Next comes the fun part – decorating. I think the cream-filled chocolate sandwich cookies really make excellent wheels (are they called wheels on a tank?), but alternately molded chocolate or piped frosting could be used instead. I piped star borders in a slightly darker shade of frosting all around the edges of the tank for some character, and piped “Happy Birthday Julian” on the top. If your frosting job isn’t perfect, just call them ‘battle scars’ and move on. I have seen several tank cakes covered in fondant, but as mentioned numerous times before, I prefer working with and eating buttercream. I didn’t want to make the cake tank grey, as I didn’t think that looked as edible, nor did I want to go with camouflage or tank green, for reasons based on appearance, taste, and authenticity. I almost went with hot pink (an inside joke), but settled on a beige/light brown color. There are tanks of this color and that allowed me to use cocoa to color the icing – much better tasting and much better for you than food dyes.

Happy Birthday Julian! :)