I made this pig cake for a pig-mad friend’s 40th birthday and it got lots of positive comments.
It is based on an idea found on this web site so in return here is a picture of my attempt along with a write up of how I did it.
BAKING:
Body is 11in plain Madeira cake with jam and butter-ice sandwich filling. Head is 7in chocolate sponge with jam and butter-ice sandwich filling. (Plain and chocolate in one cake!)
Legs are made from a chocolate Swiss roll about 5in long by 2 1/2in in diameter and cut in half. (I cheated and bought the Swiss roll from a well known national supermarket chain).
ICING:
I covered the body on top and the sides using one piece of pink sugarpaste icing, ‘sticking’ it down using a solution of apricot decorating glaze applied with a pastry brush. The head was covered as above and stuck onto the body with buttericing.
The legs were covered in pink sugarpaste except for the trotters. These were formed using a small strip of black sugarpaste around the bottom of the leg and finished with a circle on the end which I cut using an appropriate size pastry cutter.
FINISHING TOUCHES:
To complete the cake, I ‘glued’ on the following items using a weak icing sugar solution. Ears, shaped from a square of rolled sugarpaste approx 4in across, cut diagonally into two triangles.
Although I was expecting to use something like gum tragacanth to stiffen the ears, I didn’t need to as they had adequate support from the head and body.
Nose made by shaping leftover pink sugarpaste and pushing in a wooden spoon handle to make nostrils.
Eyes made using black sugar paste cut using the letter O cutter from a set of alphabet cutters we have (I used the center part of the O which is usually discarded.)
The rosy cheeks are edible glitter.
Think your pig cake is great and going to attempt to copy it for my daughter’s birthday. Oven on as I type! If it looks half as good I’m sure it will be a success.
I absolutely love, love, love this cake. The details are nice and clean and it looks very professional. Great Job and keep up the good work this cake is ABSOLUTELY AMAZING!
It worked! This is truly the coolest pig cake ever! My daughter LOVES it. Here’s a picture:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1808715377295&set=a.1253565738901.2039913.1222284234
(We didn’t have black food coloring, so we used cocoa powder to darken some for the eyes, and just left the trotters bare. By the way, our family now says “trotters” instead of hooves!)
Thank you so much for sharing this. I will come back to this site next time we need to do a special cake!
Just made the pig cake based off of your design. It worked out well. I’ll post a photo.
Me and my friend were looking for cake ideas for her mum. She loves pigs! So we thought we’d make a pig cake! So tomorrow we are going to make this cake for her! Great idea!!!!!
From laura&kelly!
hey, im 12 years old and this may sound weird but me and my bff are crazy about pigs. nearly everything we have is pigs. could u please post the igreidents and method. thnx
Thank-you for your kind comments.
You should be able to find the ingredients for the Madeira cake in any cake recipe book or just Google it.
To be honest though you can use any round cake such as a sponge or chocolate sponge depending on what you prefer. Again a recipe book will tell you how to make one of these or of course there is Google.
I bought white icing ready made and coloured it pink by adding a little red food colouring. Remember to add a little at a time as you can always add more but it is impossible to take any away.
Daughter’s 12th birthday tomorrow and she will love this – thanks for the clear directions. Gonna give it a go whilst she’s at school tomorrow.