The Cake

I know that it was a couple of week's ago, but we've had birthday celebrations galore since the middle of August. We have so many August/September birthdays in our family and have just had the final one yesterday. Phew.

I went completely out on a limb and totally out of my comfort zone when I started planning to make my daughter's second birthday cake. I'm not a confident baker and it's only in the past year or so that cake baking has become something that I enjoy doing.

Up until my latest cake, my son's birthday cake was as adventurous as I'd got and I was so chuffed with that one. At the time I was on twitter and tweeting in a cake related manner came across this 'How to make a Peppa Pig Cake Topper' Blog post via CasaCostello and bookmarked it in time for Isabelles birthday.

I hired the number 2 cake tin from a local cake maker and set about my difficult task. I spent a fortune on all the different coloured icings that I needed (no need for the lecture, I've had it off several people) and decided to have a practice run the day before with playdoh to see if I could master Peppa Pig's head.  It wasn't too bad.

However, the next day when I was making the 'real' Peppa it became quickly apparant that I am a complete novice at cake topper making. I made my Peppa minus the Walnut Whip (couldn't get one anywhere) and it sagged. The head kind of flopped forward and her body was slumping. The icing was too soft and I had no idea what to do. Thank god for good old google which suggested I add something called Tylex which is a stiffener powder used for making people or other such objects.

After a mad dash to the cake shop I finally managed to settle down and get started. I baked my sponge and iced it during the day, and waited for little miss to go to bed so that I could make my topper. I had originally decided that I was going to make the whole Peppa family, but in the end opted for making just Peppa and George, and at the last minute I added George's dinosaur to the cake.

I was so pleased with it, and the look on Isabelle's face made all the stressing completely worthwhile.

I think my next cakey project is going to be having a go at making cake pops.