Lightning McQueen Cake Tutorial - A 3D Car Cake

I made this 3D Lightning McQueen Cake for a double birthday celebration of 2 brothers. I have made 3D car cake once before. But that was using a shaped cake pan (you can read all about it here). This was my first time ever making a carved 3D car cake. I must say, I was quite happy with the way the cake turned out for a first timer.

A 3D Lightening Mcqueen cake on a black cake board.

3D Lightning McQueen Cake

This was not a very large cake. I carved the whole car out of 2 rectangle cakes. Both measured 6 inches by 10 inches and were approximately 2 inches high. To match the theme of the cake, I decorated the cake board to look like a road. The cake was placed on this sugar road. The sides were decorated in black and white square checks.

Overall, this Lightning McQueen cake did not take very long to decorate. Though this was a carved cake, the carvings were not very complicated. I could finish decorating the whole cake in a matter of 2 to 3 hours.

3D Lightning McQueen Cake - Decorating Guide

Main supplies for the cake:

Cake – I used 2 rectangle cakes measuring 6 inches by 10 inches and each cake was about 2 inches high. I used my chocolate cake recipe to bake the cakes.
Buttercream – I used chocolate buttercream to fill sandwich the carved cake pieces as well as to crumb coat the car cake before covering it with fondant.
Fondant – I used Satin Ice in red, black, yellow, orange, white and a tiny bit of blue (for the eyes).
Alphabet & number cutters – I used 2 different types of alphabet cutters for this project. Both were block letters. However, one set had a larger font size which I used to make the birthday boys’ names and the numbers 95 on the cake. I purchased this set from a local cake decorating supplies shop. The other set was Clikstix Letter Cutters . I used it for the “Happy Birthday” lettering on the cake board.
Sugar craft knife
Edible food marker in yellow – I used this marker to write the word ‘Rust-eze’ on the bonnet.
Pizza cutter wheel – this was the general cutting tool
Round plunger cutters – I used this for McQueen’s eyes
Round cutter set – I used this set for the wheels of Lightning McQueen
CMC powder
Shortening – this was the glue for sticking fondant pieces on this cake.
Fondant glue.

3D Lightning McQueen Cake

Assembling the cake:

Carving the Lightning McQueen car cake

I started by carving the cake itself. As I have mentioned earlier, the entire car was carved out of 2 layers of cake. The first layer was used for the body of the cake from front to back.
The second layer was used for the second half top of the cake. This part consisted of the roof, its windows, and windscreens. For this section, I cut the 2nd rectangle layer into 2. And then I sliced the top in a slanting position such that I got a square piece of cake with the top slanting at approximately 45 degrees angle. I placed this on the first layer of the cake with a layer of buttercream in between.
And then I cut out a long piece of triangle from the remaining cake. I placed it at the edge of the first layer, next to the slanted edge of the square piece of cake earlier. Again, I applied a layer of buttercream in between the 2 layers of the cake. This was to form the spoiler of the car.
Once I had the main parts of the cake ready, I shaped the car bonnet. I did this by first marking 2 lines on the bonnet. And then I carved out a very thin layer of cake in between the 2 lines. Following that, I carved out 4 circles, 2 on each side of the cake for the wheels. To do this, I pressed my round cutter at the bottom layer of the cake. And I carved about 1cm depth of cake following the markings of my round cutter.

Covering the car cake with icing

With that, the carving work on the cake was complete. Next, I crumb coated the cake with a thin layer of buttercream before covering the whole cake with red fondant. Next, I cut out 4 circles in black fondant that has been kneaded some CMC into. These were cut with a thickness of about 1 cm using the same round cutter I used to carve the cake for its wheels. I decorated these wheels with red fondant rims and attached them to the cake with shortening.

The windscreen, windows, front grill and Rust-eze logo

Next, I added the windscreens, windows and front grill in white fondant. These were all cut by hand using a sugarcraft knife and my ruler as a guide.
For the Rust-eze logo on the bonnet of the Lightning McQueen cake, I started with the white fondant pieces first. After that, I used my yellow edible marker to write the words on. The yellow border around the round white fondant was yellow fondant rolled by hand into a long thin strip.

The Lightning McQueen logo

As for the lightning logo on the side of the car, I formed it freehand using my sugar craft knife. I made it in orange and yellow fondant using the paper template I downloaded from the internet.
The numbers '95' on the sides of the car as well as on the roof were made using my number cutters. I finished off the deco by adding the eyes on its front windscreen. The eyes formed using my round plunger cutters. I also added the lights, both on the front as well as the back. With that, the car was complete.

3D Lightning McQueen Cake

Decorating the cake board

Next was the cake board and the names of the birthday boys. For the names, I used yellow fondant that has been kneaded some CMC into. And I used my alphabet cutters for the boys’ names. This was the same set I used for the number 95 earlier on the car. I let these letters set in a horizontal position until the rest of the board deco was completed.
For the cake board, I covered it entirely in black. And then, I measured the width of the car cake. I made sure that the width of the road on the cake board is the same as the car. For the divider lines on the road, I added short white strips in the center of the road. And I carefully lifted and placed Lightning McQueen on the road.

The lettering on the Lightning McQueen cake

Once the cake was in place, I made the “Happy Birthday” letters using my FMM block letters cutter. I placed them on the cake board (with the help of shortening). And then I attached the birthday boys’ names with the help of glue.
These 3D letters were made of yellow fondant that has been kneaded some CMC powder into. And finally, I cut out white squares using my square plunger cutter. I attached these to the cake board in alternate order to create a checkerboard pattern using shortening.