[completed] pigs in mud cake

our finished creation!

While my dear mother-in-law was visiting last week, she suggested that we make a version of this pigs-in-a-mud-barrel cake. So we did!

She made the cakes, trimmed them down so they were flat, frosted them, and assembled the kit-kat barrel around the edges of the cakes.

my mother in law constructed the barrel

While she did all that, I made the pig figures out of delicious marzipan colored with red food dye. This was difficult - I kneaded the marzipan with the food dye and tried to get an even pink color but only achieved streaky red-and-white-and-pink piggies.

I made three piggy butts, one sitting pig figure, and one laying-in-the-mud pig. It took a few tries to get the shapes and cartoon-y realism that I wanted, but fortunately marzipan is a forgiving (albeit very sticky) medium. I used a toothpick to carve out the booty cracks, the smily-face snouts, bellybuttons and the folded ears. I looked at the inspiration photo a lot during this process.

positioning the piggies

Once the piggies met with my and my mother-in-law's approval, I carefully placed the pigs on the muddy cake. And then the cake was done!

proud cake-makers

Adam ended up taking the cake to work. He came back home without any cake! We should be famous around there now! The cake was apparently both hilarious and delicious, which is exactly what we wanted. Even the marzipan pigs were consumed and appreciated.

swimming pigs cake!

That was a fun little project. I'm a little sad that I didn't get to eat the cake or the marzipan (although I consumed a bunch of it while making the pigs), but I'm happy that it was well received at Adam's work!