Pig Sty Cake

For my husband’s 29^th birthday, I threw him a bacon party.  Since I thought a bacon flavored cake would be going a bit too far, I made him a little piggy cake instead.

The decadent, chocolaty cake was the hit of the party and everyone loved the little fondant pigs!

Recipe Notes:

*I used a new chocolate frosting recipe for this cake, but wasn’t particularly thrilled with it.  I recommend using this one instead.

Pig Sty Cake

1 recipe Chocolate Sour Cream Cake, baked in three 8-inch layers

1 recipe chocolate frosting

1 jar Hershey Hot Fudge Ice Cream Topping

1 cup chocolate wafer cookies, crushed

Fondant (about 1/8 recipe), tinted pink

Edible ink marker, black

To make the pigs:

Roll fondant into ball shapes; about 1 ½ inches in diameter for adult pigs and ¾ inch for the babies.  Set aside on a piece of parchment paper that has been very lightly dusted with corn starch.

To make the ears, flatten a small piece of fondant and cut into triangles.  Curve the triangles into an ear shape.  Use a paint brush to wet the sides of the pig’s head with water and stick the ears onto the pig.

For the tails, roll a tiny piece of fondant into a log and shape into a curlicue.  Attach by wetting the backside of the pig with water and stick the tail in place.  Note: If you use too much water, the ear/tail will slide right off.  The goal is to dampen, not soak.

Use the edible ink pen to add eyes to the pigs.  Set aside.

Cake assembly:

Place the first cake layer onto a cake board.  Pipe a dam of chocolate frosting along the outer edge of the layer.  Add enough fudge topping to cover the top of the layer, going no higher than the icing dam.

Place the second layer on top of the first, taking care not to damage the icing dam.  Add a second icing dam on this layer, along with the fudge topping.  Carefully place the third layer on top.  Ice the entire cake (top and sides) with chocolate frosting.

Pour several spoonfuls of fudge topping onto the top of the cake to represent the mud.

Press handfuls of crushed wafer cookies to the sides of the cake to represent dirt.  Also add some crushed cookies to the top of the cake.  Place the pigs in the mud.