Hot Tub Pig Cake

After spotting this cake online, my sister and my mum were determined to make it for Rob's 22nd birthday.  Last weekend the three of us spent Saturday mixing, baking, decorating and licking the bowl until we'd produced our own hot tub pig cake.  Sorry for the terrible quality photos, I didn't take my camera home with me so I could only use my phone.

We followed this recipe to make the chocolate sponge using my mum's Kitchen Aid which I love. The cake turned out delicious, so I completely recommend this recipe.  We stuck the two layers of chocolate sponge together using chocolate butter-cream (butter, icing sugar and cocoa powder) and stuck the Kit-Kats around the edged using the same butter-cream, keeping them in place by tying a ribbon around them.  Then we made the ganache by melting milk chocolate in a bowl over a simmering saucepan of water, and stirring in the same amount of double cream - it mixed really well, looks smooth and shiny, and was think enough not to seep out between the gaps in the cake.

We made the pigs by mixing white fondant icing with a touch of red food colouring.  Luckily my sister is pretty skilled at icing modelling and she made the most adorable little pigs by copying the picture on the internet. We plopped the little pigs into the still-warm ganache and dotted a few decorative daisies in the 'mud' too, and it was complete! Rob adored it and it tasted delicious!