How to make a 'Pigs In Mud Cake'

A month or so ago our IBOT hostess with the mostess liked a picture on Facebook. Knowing that her birthday was just around the corner I took it as a hint. After all it is not every day that you turn thirty.

All in all not a bad effort.
Even if I do say so myself

While I am no cake baker I closely examined the picture and decided it was well within my capabilities. Really all it was, was a chocolate cake surrounded with kit kat bars and a couple of fondant pigs wallowing on top.

Easy as!

Though I did decide that a trial run was in order as well. Which worked out well because then that gave the birthday girl a cake to have with the kids and a cake for the adult party. Win, win. Though according to my girls a better solution was to let them have the trial. I foresee a few more pig cakes in my future this year.

Since I am a sharing, caring kind of blogger I am going to let you know how I went about it all.

First up you need to have some chocolate cakes. I cooked made three from the recipe that I found on the side of the self raising flour that I purchased for the occasion. I tried going to their website to link it in, but would you believe that it is not on there?

There is this one for a rich chocolate cake which I must admit does sound rather nice and not unlike the one I used. Alternatively you can try and copy it from this photo

This is not a sponsored post, just me telling it how it is.

or perhaps head down to the local supermarket and check out the backs of self raising flour packets.

Anyway even though I cooked three you probably only need two. I just wanted one to practise with. Also if your cake is a lovely rising high cake you may only need one. Mine were dense and heavy and not very high at all. But since there were two of them the same it worked well.

Now because two cakes sitting upon each other is a lot of cake so I broke it up with a raspberry cream filling. Again totally easy.

See that yummy raspberry cream in the middle there?

Get a cup and a half of frozen raspberries, whack them in the blender with a bit of cream (about 200ml) and blend away. Spread in between the two cakes. Don't worry too much about spreading all the way to the edges of the cakes. The pressure of the top cake will push the mixture out to the edges.

For the top of the cake, as in the mud, I made a chocolate ganache, which sounds rather flash I know, but again, dead easy.

My cupcake friend explained it easily when she said you just get twice as much chocolate as you do cream. Melt them together and stir for a while. Let it cool and you are done.

I was doubtful, but it turns out that was pretty much all I had to do.

Using the ganache I stuck the time out's to the edge of the cake. It went much easier than I expected. For the trial run cake I used finger biscuits and only did a single layer. This also worked quite well, especially if you didn't want a huge rich cake.

The trial cake with chocolate fingers instead of time out or kit kat. 

Probably could have squeezed a second layer of cake in, if it weren't a trial. 

Mind you once the pigs and mud were own the empty space on the fingers wasn't so noticeable..

Seriously can someone please pin this shot for me?

Surely this is pin worthy material?

Possibly more cake photos than you really need to see but it didn't seem right to leave any out

So the only part left to tell you about is the making of the fondant pigs. These were not exactly dead easy like the rest of the cake but they were not exactly to tricky either. I have actually a whole post lined up on handy fondant tips. It is just a matter of getting it out of my head.

Fondant is lots of fun and can be used for a whole range of things. It is possible to make your own, but since a decent size box from the super market is only around $5 it is a worthy investment in my mind.

Fondant is essentially just yummy play doh

It is best to prepare the fondant shapes a few days before you actually need them. To get all the low downs on making pigs out of fondant check out here or give it a quick google. 

I decided that I could just wing it and just between you and me I don't think I did too bad a job! It really is just a matter of rolling a few different shaped balls and gently pressing them together. A dab of water also helps hold the fondant in place.

So what did the birthday girl think of it all...

Excuse the dodgy lighting, apparently that is what it is like
when you go out

It is Tuesday and I have blogged.

You should too.