Pork Pie Cake

My husband and I were watching Who Wants to Be a Millionaire the other day and there was a question that stuck with me. What type of hat is named for it's distinctive shape? The answer turned out to be a pork pie hat. I had never heard of such a thing and couldn't figure out what made it "distinctive" enough to be named after pork or even pie. Once I looked it up online (what did we do before Google? Lived in oblivion, I suppose), I recognized it right away. I now understand the correlation between the hat and shape of a particular meat pie but I still couldn't get the silly name out of my head. So, naturally, I decided to make a cake.

I started by taking a 6 inch round, cutting it in half and standing each on its side with the bottoms together to make the body. I used my smallest mixing bowl for the head, some mini-cupcakes for a nose and feet and a pyrex ramiken for the pie. The entire thing needed a little carving here and there. The edges of his back were rounded out some, the head cut off a bit to make the neck shorter and the bottoms of the feet flattened so they would snug up next to him better. I inserted a toothpick to help hold his nose in place and went to work making him pink. It takes longer than you think to cover a pig in hot pink buttercream icing using a star tip. If I did it again, I'd probably just ice it and flatten it out to make it easier but I do like the texture contrast between the pig and the smooth fondant of the accessories.

More piggy after the jump.




Once he was properly pink, I used black icing to give him hooved feet. His nose was removed, covered in light pink fondant and secured back onto the toothpicks. The nostrils are simply two pieces of fondant cut out with the end of a straw and painted black. The eyes are baby blue fondant cut with a straw and added to white fondant cut out with a small round cutter and shaped into ovals so that he is oogling the pie. To make the curls in the tail, I cut out a strip of the same baby pink fondant used for the nose and wrapped it around a pencil to let it cure. I did the same for the ears, wrapping the edge of the fondant triangle around the pencil and once they were hard secured them onto the pig. I have to be honest that it took a couple of tries on the tail since it was quite difficult to not break it while shoving it into the pig's...well, you know where it went.

The pie was my favorite part of this cake. I had originally thought I would make a pig coming out of the middle of a large pie but the idea of a perfect mini-pie made from cake and fondant was too tempting to resist. The little bit of cake I baked in the ramekin came out the ideal pie shape already so all that was left was to make it look like one. I used just a bit of brown to tint the fondant but not so dark that it looked burnt. Once it had a light layer of icing on it, I used one strip to go around the outside and a circle for the top then pinched the two together around the edges. After I cut the three small vent holes on the top with the x-acto knife, it still needed something to make it look more real. I put a drop of the brown coloring in a couple of tablespoons of water and lightly glazed the top and sides. The effect worked well and I thought it really looked like it had turned golden brown in the oven.

All he needed now was his hat. I decided on a gray color with a dark blue ring. For the base, I rolled the fondant to about 1/4 inch thick and then used a drinking glass to cut it out. The top was shaped to about an inch and a half then cut with the large round cutter and set to the base. The indentation on the top was pushed in with a shot glass rim and I stole a feather tip out of the kids' craft box for a little extra touch.

He turned out pretty cute if I do say so myself. Yes, it is completely pointless but it was fun to create. Besides, it's never a bad idea to make a cake.