Introduction: Helicopter Birthday Cake

About: I have had a few careers so far, soldier, school teacher, arborist, millwright. I love change and I love learning.
For my son's 4th birthday (this was pre volcano) I made him a cake that was a helicopter complete with spinning blades.

Don't forget to look at my other cake in this contest:
moving tank cake

Please check out my other instructables and I also have a diy podcast called mechanicalmashup.tv


Step 1: The Base

The base was made from a scrap piece of wood I had lying around. I painted it white and stenciled on the helicopter symbol. Leaving out part of the H to create a four because it was my son's 4th birthday. I created the helicopter landing skids with coat hangers and slipped them right into holes in the wood base to keep everything stable (plus it had no welder at that point) If you look, you can figure out where the 8 holes were drilled. The frame of the helicopter was an old cookie sheet I cut to size and bent into the shape I wanted. The motor is one of those flywheel motors you get with cars where you push them and they keep going. I picked up the toy car from a recycling store as well as the hotwheels track I used to make the blades. Everything was screwed together and then I wrapped the mechanism in tin foil to keep the cake from being contaminated by anything. The man is a rescue hero (one of my sons favorite toys at the time).

Step 2: Building the Cake

I have made cakes from scratch before but when I get elaborate like this, I like to focus my time on the shape and not measuring and mixing more than I have to. Hence I used cake mix from a store. I will not bother including steps on how to follow box instructions.

It took several cakes to make this, you can see there is sprinkle cake and marble cake blocks in this. After letting the cakes cool, I cut them to shape and fit them on the base. You can see I used newspaper to keep any mess off of the wood as I was building. I used copious amounts of icing as glue as I built the shape.

Step 3: Decorating

I have gotten much better at icing since I did this. I just smooshed it on quick here and used a little brown icing for the cockpit windows. Add some smartie lights and side windows and we are in business.

Step 4: Other Cakes

Here are examples of cakes I have done that don't deserve their own instructable.

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