I made this homemade 3D Peppa Pig birthday cake by using a basic sponge recipe. The head was 3 eggs, 175g self raising flour, caster sugar and margarine– this mixture was divided between two 0.5 litre bowls. The body was 6 eggs, 375g self raising flour, caster sugar and margarine and 185g plain flour– this mixture was divided between two 2 litre bowls.
I began by trimming the crust from the cakes and cutting the top flat with a serrated knife. I stuck the two 2 litre cakes together with butter icing to form a ball shape. I then spread a layer of butter icing all over the cake.
I dyed some sugar paste dark pink using food colouring pastes, gradually adding until I achieved the desired colour. I prefer these pastes as they are less sticky than normal food dyes and give a stronger colour. I covered the cake in this sugar paste, tucking the extra icing underneath trying to smooth out the pleats with a cake smoother.
I repeated the same process with the smaller cakes to form the head but I used light pink sugar paste instead.
I positioned the body on the cake board securing with a little butter icing. I then cut out lots of flowers from purple sugar paste and yellow circles for the centre of the flowers and stuck them all over the body using sugar glue.
I stuck Peppa’s head on top securing with some butter icing. I made the ears and nose from spare light pink sugar paste. I modeled them until I achieved the desired shapes. I secured them using sugar glue but the nose was quite heavy so required some cocktail sticks to help it stay in position.
The mouth was some red sugar paste rolled into a sausage shape and positioned in a smile shape. The cheeks were pink circles also stuck with sugar glue and the eyes were white squashed balls with a black dot in the middle.
Peppa’s arms and legs were formed from sausage shapes of pink sugar paste shaping hand shapes at the end of the arms. I made yellow welly boots from sugar paste, I had done these by shaping a round ball of the sugar paste into L shapes, indenting lines onto the bottom of the boots and making a hole in the top so the legs could be inserted into them.
The cake board was covered in green sugar paste and little blossom flowers were added all over for a touch of extra decoration. Since Peppa loves jumping in muddy puddles I decided to write the birthday message in a muddy brown butter icing and also to add splashes of mud to the welly boots and around the board.
I am planning on making one for my grandaughter’s 2nd birthday in a couple of weeks.
How long did you cook the head and body for?
Hi, I can’t really remember how long but I’m guessing around 45 mins for small cakes and- 1 hour 15mins for large. I usually just keep checking as quite deep cakes so hard to judge.
Also I have done a similar 3d cake of a different character recently and instead of bowls for body I used 4x 7 inch round cake tins sized cakes stacked on top of each other then carved out a dome shape. I prefer this for a 3d body.
Hope this helps and sorry for rambling on!
Thanks claire