Sunday, September 9, 2012

Hey, what is this? A Porco Gnu cake!

I baked and decorated this cake for a friend (uhm, kind of... the unadulterated truth is, he's an ex date of mine...) whose birthday is on September 4th.

Now this guy, he has a funny habit - you know when you start swearing real bad, then catch yourself just in time and utter something goofy instead?
Well, his trademark line is "Porco gnu!" - which can't be translated really, but is evocative of some sort of unholy union between a pig and a wildebeest.

Yep, I said PIG -


- and WILDEBEEST...


...so, take a deep breath and picture it in your mind.

I did.


I followed Paul Bradford's sugar pig tutorial, then tweaked it by adding bovine features such as a brush-like tail, mane, beard, and of course the distinctive curvy horns.


I am especially proud of the tail. It does a good job of keeping up the whole "pig/wildebeest crossbreed" concept, and looks so funny and cute on him!


Obligatory out-of-focus mug shot:


For the cake itself I used this recipe from Aikko's blog, Bake Happy. It is one I baked over and over, and it never failed me - it's so easy and delicious!
This was the first time I put fondant on it, though, and it was a bit too crumbly to support its weight; I had left the cake to set for a full 1 hours before plopping the topper on it, but still it managed to sink visibly over the couple hours before the cake was cut. Mind you, the topper was a bit heavy, since I a full 250 g.  package of sugarpaste went into it... I think if I had used all-purpose flour instead of cake flour just for this once, it would have helped.

Even so, the cake was well received and made people giggle a lot, which was the whole point really! 

6 comments:

  1. I can't tell you how much I appreciate this! My daughter needs to do a Wildebeest presentation in a few weeks and I had NO Idea what to make. I made my daughter hippo cupcakes last year and now the little one gets Wildebeest.. this is soo helpful!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Always happy to be useful! :-)
      And please, point me to a pic once you're done... I'm SO curious now!

      Delete
  2. Would you mind if I used your last image as a profile pic?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Of course I wouldn't - I daresay I'd be honoured!
      I'm sorry it's so blurry, it wasn't shot in the best conditions... still, I'm so glad you like it! <3

      Delete
    2. Dude, thank _you_.
      You totally made my day! ^__^

      Delete