Peppa Pig Cake Take 2

I received a message asking if the cake could be a chocolate cake so that ruined all my ideas for a lovely pink and white layer, so I thought about how I could still get some of the wow factor when cutting into the cake. 

I decided on a marble cake, chocolate sponge with pink sponge mixed in creating a marble effect. I made a cake batter and split it in 2 adding chocolate to one mix and pink to the other. 

Batter is coloured and ready

I placed spoonfuls of each mixture in the cakes tins mixing them up with a knife to create a swirled effect. 

Cakes swirled and ready to go in the oven. 

And the put them in the oven to cook. 

Cakes out the oven.

While the cake cooked I made a start on Peppa, I wanted to take more time over her today and try and do a better effort. Following information from my mother, I made the body more of a semi circle ready for the head to sit on. I took much more time over the head, I started with a ball and then carefully shaped out a snout, the rest of the head I formed an oval shape out of. The snout started off too long so I shortened this a little and tried to make it more in line with the top of the head as this is how it looks in the pictures. 

Once I was happy with the shaping I carefully painted on the outline of the snout. To make the eyes and cheeks this time I decided to use icing. I coloured one bit a deeper pink, made tiny balls and flattened these out for the cheeks. For the eyes I did the same thing, even smaller, and painted a black dot in the middle. At the moment I don't have paint brushes so I had to use toothpicks for the painting, challenging but I think I pulled it off. The only issue I have now is the mouth, I've only seen a 2D image and it's difficult to make the mouth work, it can't be just one side but all the pictures just show it on the side and not going under the snout. When I try and draw it on her mouth looks too long and gives a bit of a freaky grin about her. I think once I've got the mouth sorted I'll be quite happy. I made some small ears and arms using the pink icing. I held on the arms with just 1 toothpick going through the body to hold them in place. 

Peppa Pig

Finished cake side

Finished cake other side

 I decided to decorate the top of the cake with green icing as this is what it'll be for the finished cake. The eventual aim is that this is the grass and they'll be muddy puddles that she's jumping in. I don't have any brown at the moment so I think I'll have to purchase some already coloured brown for that purpose. I need to also make a George pig and a number 2, each in puddles. There's also a possible house to build but I think I might run out of room on top of the cake.

For the final cake I intend making it 4 layers so there's a larger cake underneath, the cake will look more grand and will have more height to it. I hope she'll like it. 

 The final cake didn't have the marbling that I hoped once baked. The chocolate seems to have taken over the cake. Next time I'm going to try 3/4 pink and 1/4 chocolate in order to try and get the marble effect across. I hope it'll still be chocolatey enough then, only way I can check is to try it!! I made this cake with just standard pink buttercream, the cake was really missing something without the raspberry buttercream. That'll certainly add something to the final cake, flavour and colourwise. 

Please let me know what you think.. 

A slice of the cake showing the marble effect, or lack of it.