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!