How to Make a Truck Cake Easy

Learn how to make the easiest Monster truck cake that your kids will LOVE.

If you have young monster truck fans you want to impress, they will adore this chocolate "muddy" version of a monster truck cake with their favorite Monster Jam truck (the Grave Digger, etc.) at the finish line for the win!

This makes a great birthday cake idea for boys AND girls- even those big kids who love their trucks!

And you won't have to hire a cake designer to make this cake.

It's easy peasy.

I'm not exaggerating when I say this is probably the easiest fancy birthday cakes that I've made yet!

One huge reason why its easy: the messier and more imperfect – the better! You'll see why when you read the tutorial…

Get the kids involved too.

It's a perfect project to show your kiddos how creative and fun baking and cake decorating can be. And you'll have fun together as a bonus!

My son (the birthday boy) loved crushing the cookies, and sprinkling them in the "mud" chocolate. He also enjoyed putting the Chocolate malt ball "rock boulders" in place.

If you want more super easy birthday cake ideas, check out our other cakes, like:

easy s'mores camping cake
bunny bum candy birthday cake
minion birthday cake

Grave Digger Cake

Chances if your making this grave digger cake, you already have this popular toy truck. You can use this toy as a cake topper on this cake- simple!

If you don't have to grave digger, any monster truck will do.

How to make Chocolate "Mud" Cake Topper

To make a part of the top of the cake look muddy (like in a Monster Jam), we used the Oreo cookies (with the white middles removed) and crushed them up into small pieces.

This part was super fun for my 5 year old – no adult help required. Even though I wanted to jump in and join the fun- I restrained myself and let the kids do their thing.

My son took a small potato masher to crush the Oreo cookies in a bowl. This technique worked well for the kids.

You can do it this way or just chop them up in a food processor. Just make sure you don't crush them too fine – you want "chunky" texture for a muddier look.

Birthday Cake Ideas for Boys

Making birthday cakes for kids is super fun and with the right tutorial can be surprisingly easy, fun and gratifying- even if you're NOT a cake decorator or even baker.

Not to mention, it makes cakes that much more special to the special birthday boy!

If you are looking for more easy ideas, check out Marybeth's (from babySavers) awesome list of 10 birthday cake ideas for boys. There's lots of inspiration in that list, be sure to check it out!

Now, on to the step by step tutorial /recipe on how to make this grave digger birthday cake!

Prep Time 5 minutes

Cook Time 30 minutes

Additional Time 20 minutes

Total Time 55 minutes

Ingredients

Boxed cake mix (Betty Crocker, Dunkin Hines)
Vanilla Icing
Chocolate Icing
Green Food Color
Box of Oreo cookies
Chocolate Malt Balls
2 round 8" or 9" cake pans
Optional:
Monster truck decorations (Grave Digger toy truck, birthday number cake topper, finish line flag cake topper)

Instructions

1. Mix the boxed cake mix according to instructions on the box. Divide the batter into 2 8" or 9" round cake pans. Bake according to instructions

2.Once cakes are cooled, stack them on top of each other on a cake stand or cake plate.

3. Using a knife, cut out a shallow piece from 1/4 of the cake (as shown in the picture below) Once the cake is done, it will give the effect that the monster truck is going up a hill.

4. Mix your vanilla icing with some green food coloring. Start out with a few drops of food coloring and mix. Add more to get a tint of green that you like.

Remember, a little food coloring goes a long way, and its always best to add incrementally, so that your color isn' too dark.

5. Take your green food coloring and ice the entire cake (but leave out the area you cut out in step 3). To ice you can use a butter knife or a baking spatula.

Dont worry if bits and pieces of your cake crumble off as you ice. The beauty of this monster truck cake is that its suppose to look "messy" and "muddy" so you can't go wrong.

6. Using the chocolate frosting, frost the part your cut out in step 3. Optional: IF you want you can also use the chocolate icing to ice a bottom border around the cake. This will give effect of muddy road the monster truck climbed.

7. Take your oreo cookies and remove the white icing from the middles.

Crush the cookie only pieces using a potato masher in a bowl. (or put them in a giant ziploc back and "hammer" them with a rolling pin)

8. Sprinkle the crushed orea pieces on the chocolate frosting any way you wish.

9. Finish off by adding your chocolate malt balls (to mimic big rock boulders) in chocolate icing.

You can then add your Grave Digger monster truck (or any other truck your have) climbing the chocoalte muddy path to the finish line.

Optional: Add in finish line flags and birthday number.

Notes

You can use a couple of toy cars and place the beneath the monster truck - a la Monster jam! Have fun with it and add whatever else you think your Monster Truck fan will love!

To get even more cool monster truck cake ideas, checkout Pinterest!

Nutrition Information:

Yield:

Serving Size:

1
Amount Per Serving: Calories: 257 Total Fat: 5g Saturated Fat: 2g Trans Fat: 0g Unsaturated Fat: 2g Cholesterol: 6mg Sodium: 385mg Carbohydrates: 52g Fiber: 1g Sugar: 33g Protein: 3g

For fun here are some extra pictures of the monster jam birthday cake we made