Food for Peppa Pig....

Back for another day of yummy cakey fun! I mentioned in my last post that I would show you how I made the picnic food for my Peppa Pig cakes. It's all very easy to do and looks great on any picnic cakes that you may be thinking of making.




 

 My lovely peppa cake i made last week included a little picnic, which are all very easy to make yourself. You need to use modelling paste ( see last post on making peppa figures) as it's easy to mould and sets quite hard.

 

First I made the plates, I rolled the modelling paste quite thin and used a round cutter to cut out the plate size, and then a smaller round cutter to dent it slightly so it looks more like a plate and less like a circle!

 

Then I made the jam (or ham!) sandwiches, for this you use white and dark pink modelling paste. I rolled them out and used a square cutter to cut two white squares and one pink one, then stick together as though its a jam sandwich. Once stuck together cut into 4 small triangles and place two on each plate (depends on the size of your square cutter).

 

 

Then I made the cake below. I used white, brown and red modelling paste. I rolled the brown paste slightly thicker than usual so it would look more like a sponge cake and used the round cutter to cut two circles. Then I rolled the red and white paste out slightly thinner and used to same round cutter to cut one circle out of each. I then stacked them in the following order, brown, red, brown and then white on top and glued them all together (using edible glue). I rolled 5 little balls of red modelling paste and stuck them on top and there you have it a mini picnic for peppa pig!

My next post will be about the lovely cupcakes I made this weekend! Happy baking people xxx

Another weekend baking with Peppa Pig...

So another weekend of baking which has kept me busy and my life now seems to evolve around little one and baking! I mentioned in my last couple of posts that I was making another Peppa Pig cake (very popular!) and that I would put a small tutorial of how I made the peppa figures, so here it is!  

So first I made some modelling paste by mixing sugar paste (also known as fondant) and florist paste in equal amounts. This makes the paste stronger and you can stretch it more as seen below.



 

Normal Sugar Paste

Modelling Paste (mix of Sugar and Florist Paste)

Florist Paste ( I like to buy this in White and colour it myself as I use it for many different models)

I then coloured some of it pink for peppas face using claret colouring below and broke some off for the arms and legs before molding the head. I also coloured the body red and molded this into a slight cone shape using my hands and flattening the top to put the head on. 

Peppa's head is quite hard to get right, I tapered it to make the nose longer but her head is quite flat so you need to make a dip under the nose so it looks like this:

 

 

I then made holes for the nose and eyes using the end of a small brush, you can of course you the end of a cocktail stick too. Then I put this to one side to dry a bit and rolled out the arms and legs from the small bit of pink modelling paste we put aside earlier.

 

I then cut the arms and flattened one end of each arm using a knife before cutting into three small fingers.

With the feet I did the same but with no flattening, I made some little shoes by rolling two bits of red modelling paste into small balls, flattening them slightly to a more oval shape and making a small dent using the end of the brush. I then stuck two pink rolled out legs into these dents using edible glue.
 

Then I stuck them all together using edible glue and stuck little balls of white florist paste as eyes into the holes I made earlier. I made the ears out of little balls of pink modelling paste and shaped and flattened them slightly and stuck them on top of her head slightly back from the eyes.

         

 

I then used the end of a cocktail stick dipped in dark food colouring and dabbed it in the middle of the white eye for the pupil. Then I mixed some red food colouring in a small bit of water and painted the smile and cheeks. Here is one from the earlier cake as I didn't get a photo of finished Peppa but she is on the finished cake :) 

 

 

I also made George using a blue body and some picnic food and ducks...

 

And here is the finished cake!

 

                               

In my next post I will show you how to make some picnic food that you can see on this cake... until then happy baking!

New Cake Lace Amazingness!

Hi Cakey friends!

As you know in my last post I made a peppa pig number 1 cake, for this Saturday I am making a peppa pig picnic cake for a little girls 2nd birthday so I have started putting the figures together and will show you step by step how I created them later this week. But now I wanted to talk about a new cake decorating product on the market that I have purchased (and sadly got a bit excited about!) called Cake Lace. It is created by the fabulous cake designer Claire Bowman and is available to buy at www.thecakedecoratingcompany.co.uk 

I purchased the Chantilly Lace Large Mat, the spreading knife and the mixture, not cheap but was so very worth it! It is similar to the sugarveil but is a lot quicker as you put this in the oven for 15 minutes and it's ready to use, ideal for when you need it in a hurry or just need to make lots of lace.

The mix comes in two parts, a powder and a liquid.

First you put 50ml of water into the cake mixer and add 4tbsp of the powder mix. Then mix it on high speed for a couple minutes, then add 1 teaspoon of the liquid mix and mix it all on high speed for 5 minutes until all smooth.

Once mixed you then spread it onto the mat, it smells very sweet and is very sticky so don't worry about it spilling over. I was also worried as I didn't have any baking trays big enough to keep this mat flat in the oven but as it turned out it doesn't matter how it sits in the oven as the whole mat and lace is flexible so will come out perfect regardless!

Then you keep spreading the mix with the knife until it looks like this:

Then put it in the preheated oven at 50-70 Celsius, which isn't even half a gas mark so very low, for 15 minutes and hey presto! Place it upside down on greaseproof paper and carefully peel the lace out of the mat.

I lustered mine with a lustre spray, although do be careful when doing this as if it gets too wet it will start to melt a bit, but it's very flexible and easy to stick to the cake using a bit of water.

Here is the lace stuck onto the cake, I think it looks amazing and looks very effective. I got so many compliments on this cake which was actually very simple to create!

I love this new product and will definitely be using it again and again, if you are making a smaller cake or just want the border at the bottom then it is very easy to cut as I did on the top tier. But is just as effective on one tier as two.

 

Next post will be the making of the peppa pig picnic, I will finish the figures in the next couple of days and put them up for all to see and hopefully help some whose kids are just as crazy about Peppa as mine!

My baking weekend with Peppa Pig

 Hello Cakey lovers!

Sorry it has been a while, I will get round to putting up some cupcake decorating techniques on here in the next few days. I have had a very busy baking weekend, a number one peppa pig cake for a gorgeous little girls birthday and a first holy communion cake for an equally gorgeous young lady. I used the opportunity to try out my new toy, Cake Lace and it is an amazing (slightly expensive) piece of equipment.

First off, my peppa pig baking, I rarely use moulded tins to create cakes, I prefer to carve and lets be honest if I had to buy every single shape I have made I would be even more skint than I am now! I have made many number one cakes, especially as Miya is now 2 and all her friends have gone through that age, that has meant lots of cakes for me to make!

I baked a big square cake and then cut it once cooled into various shapes to create the number one. This is a three layer cake as you should never put jam and buttercream in the same layer (if you do the layers won't stick and it will be hard to get an even cake) and I like to have a bit of sweet jam in cakes :)

I then covered the entire cake in buttercream and left it to chill for a little while before icing it. Previous to this I covered the cake board in green fondant and let it harden overnight so that it looks more like grass.

I then covered the cake in pink fondant and added my little peppa pig figures I had made during the week. I am making another peppa pig cake in a week so I will show you how I made the figures this week and all the picnic food and blanket.

I find it easier to make the figures and food etc to go on the cake in the evenings so that all I have to do when the cake is iced is stick them on with some edible glue. I then added some flowers I made earlier and some buttercream grass using my grass nozzle mentioned in a previous post. Then iced the message on.

The finished cake! I loved making this peppa cake and am doing another one in a weeks time for a little girl's 2nd birthday and can't wait to get started!

 

Until then happy baking!