Trains!!!

When faced with a icky toddler mothers become inventive!!!

My ebay purchase of a Nordic Ware train tin was a real winner last week.
As my son was basically having nil by mouth, I turned to trickery!

I used the most simple cake recipe I know ... a quatre-quarts (translates to 4 quarters, and makes it very easy to remember!)  as my grandmother called it. Pound cake in the states, and simple sponge over here in UK.

As most of these Nordic ware tins are very intricate spending some time greasing and flouring is probably a necessity :) I've never tried without. I use some melted fat and brush into all the little nooks then give it a good dusting of plain flour. I would imagine you can get away with a spray though. 

To make the wagons I weighed out 3 whole eggs (beaten in the mixing bowl), and than matched the weight with same of  sugar (2 table spoons substituted by vanilla sugar, but you could easily add some extract), melted veg fat (or unsalted butter if you have it) and selfraising flour. Whisked or stir together to a nice thick batter. Fill the moulds to about 2 cm from edge and baked in fan assisted on 170*C for about 15-20 minutes or until the tops are golden and a skewer comes out clean.
If you are using a bundt tin it will probably take 30-40 minutes depending on your tin. But I have noticed that unlike some fluffier cakes (this is quite dense unless you whip the eggwhites seperately like my gran did for special occasion cakes :) - read cakes that will be eaten on the day! It tends to keep longer somehow with non whisked eggwhites) you can open the oven to test no problemo after the initial rising. This cake mix is also great for shaping as it holds together well!

Yummy cake and great fun to play with :)