The Scooby Doo Cake - Part 4: The finished work!

"ZOINKS, like Happy B-Day SHAGGY!"

The finished product! The ultimate MYSTERY MACHINE birthday cake for a 23 year old SCOOBY-DOO fan! And get this... the birthday boy's name is SHAGGY too! This was my first cake made as a free agent, working from home and for myself! It took some serious prep but now my kitchen is set up and it was an excellent first challenge. Now I know what I can offer and make from home! I was very happy with how it turned out. What was really important to me was that I wanted to avoid the typical issues you see with car cakes... it was very handy having my boyfriend Tim help with the planning of the project. Since he is an engineer, he designed and built the chassis and he also helped get the scaling and sizing correct! Important details when trying to make the best replica cake you can, FROM CAKE and SUGAR!!! ;)

Building the Scooby Doo Cake - Part 3: Decorations

I pre-made some of the decorations like the Scooby-Doo and Shaggy figurines and the Mystery Machine van logo a day or 2 in advanced from fondant.

Building the Scooby Doo Cake - Part 2: The CAKE

Baked sheets of chocolate cake are now cut, stacked with layers of chocolate ganache, cooled, then carved and covered with a thin layer of vanilla butter cream over it. The cake is cooled for about 1 hour and then trimmed and then covered with blue and green fondant.

Building the Scooby Doo Cake - Part 1: The Chassis

My boyfriend Tim is an engineer... and I called on his expertise to build/rig up the chassis for the Mystery Machine! I really wanted the van to look like a van and not a lot of other car cakes and or Mystery Machine cakes I had seen online. It had to be authentic! the chassis is made from foam board, duct tape, wooden dowels and pvc pipe.