"Vegetarian Pig Roast" - a sculpted cake tutorial. :)

Ok, there's nothing healthy, low-cal or diet about this, but it's too cute not to share.

My brother had his annual pig roast last night, Pigapalooza III. The boys in my family are all spectacular cooks, and I can't compete with the foods they make, but I do kick *kitten* in the dessert department. Beginning last year, I've taken an interest in fondant, and this is my second sculpted cake.

For the cake itself, I used a Butter Pecan mix. Adding a sprinkle of cinnamon for extra flavor. And I used applesauce instead of oil, two eggs instead of three, and slightly less water than the cake called for. You need the cake to be a little more firm than moist. It'll still be plenty tasty, but you don't want it to fall apart.

I made two 8" round cakes (one mix) and two dozen cupcakes (one mix). You'll need the two rounds and two cupcakes to sculpt a pig. But you'll want to have the cupcakes around, because people will hesitate to dig into your finished cake.

So here's what you do. Stack your two cake rounds flat sides together, and cut about one third off the bottom of both cakes. The parts you cut off will be used for the hind legs and part of the head. Cut one cupcake in half. Each half will be used as front legs. And choose one cupcake for the snout.

Use regular icing to "glue" the pieces together. You'll probably want to slop some icing on your platter, too, to keep your pig from sliding around.



Cover everything with more icing. This will give the fondant something to stick to, plus some folks don't like the taste and texture of fondant, and they'll still be happy. Then stick your piggie in the frigde and let him chill and firm up a bit more for about an hour or so.



Then you can roll out the fondant. You can buy it at any craft store - Joann's, Michael's, AC Moore, etc. It's about $8-9 for a one pound block. One pound should be enough to cover the cake. Last year, I used white and painted it with watered down food coloring, but this year I was lazy and bought pink. I had some white left over that I used for his eyes.

Add confectioner's sugar to your rolling pin, hands and rolling surface. It keeps the fondant from sticking. You'll want to roll it out to about the thickness of a nickel. If you're really good with it, you can roll out a huge amount and drape, tuck and arrange it over the entire cake in one piece. I'm not really good with it, so I covered the body, head, and each leg separately. And the way I figured... It's a PIG. A few wrinkles, creases and rolls are to be expected!!!

I used a few drops of food coloring mixed with fondant to make brighter pink and orange for the flowers. They sell little cutters, like cookie cutters, for shapes like the flowers. Or hearts, stars, anything. Just add a few drops of coloring to the fondant, and work it in like your kneading PlayDough. It would be smart to wear plastic gloves for that. I didn't, and had to use Lava hand soap to get the stains off my hands! :laugh:

Shape it as you lay it on to form the hooves, pinching and tucking as necessary. You can cut off any excess with a sharp knife, and tuck it under the body. For the ears and his flower lei, rubbing a little tiny bit of water on the fondant will help it stick to itself. It doesn't show in my pictures, but I rolled out a little curly tail, too. I made up extra flowers and used them on top of regular vanilla icing to decorate each cupcake. I somewhere, somehow found black food coloring, and used a small paintbrush to color his hooves, nostrils, mouth, eyebrows and eyeballs. They also sell "food markers" that work well on fondant, too. I'm an artist and have a very steady hand, so I'm comfortable with a paintbrush. The markers might be easier for some.

The finished product.



It would be easy to change up the face and ears a little to make it a puppy or kitten for a kid's party, too.

I didn't get a picture of the cupcakes this year, but here's last year's.