Easy Barn Birthday Cake

My little sis has asked for instructions on how to make a barn shaped cake for my nephew's birthday.

When my own little boy had his first birthday (it seems like a lifetime ago now) I decided to go with a farm theme. I looked at lots of cakes, but they all seemed either too flat (just stick a barn toy on sheet cake) or far too complicated for this wanna-be cake decorator. That is, until I found this one.

~ The bottom layer is a simple 9x13 pan.  I frosted the top 2/3 with white icing and then sprayed blue food coloring to give the sky some variation.  The bottom third was frosted in green with a few "Plants" piped on.  (ignore the colors in this photo - I'm not sure why they came out so wacky)

~ The second layer is made out of a square 9x9 pan.  I cut the top to make it into a barn shape and then piped the whole thing in red stripes for the barn boards and black for the roof.  

~ The silo is made out of Keebler fudge stripe cookies.  I cut them so that they had one flat side, (removed approx. 1/3) and then "glued" them into an eight inch column using melted chocolate chips (don't try to use frosting, it isn't stiff enough to maintain the shape).  After the cookie column dried I placed it beside the barn and iced it in the same red color.  

~ The barn doors are made out of graham crackers piped in white stripes.  I then piped on some of the same black color from the roof to add the details.  

 

~ The horse (or whatever other animal you imagine it to be) is an animal cracker with white icing applied very roughly to make its "fur,"  and the field stones are chocolate candies that I had left over from a cake I made for my dad.  

The lines aren't straight, and my techniques are all very wobbly, but everyone knew that the cake was supposed to be a barn, and it tasted yummy - mission accomplished.