I wasn’t kidding when I said that cake took me four days.  Partly because, well, I have five kids and other things to do with my life than make cake, and partly because certain cake parts required refrigeration.  Or something like that.  Anyway, we started on Tuesday with the fondant.  I had never made fondant before, so I watched this video, read a few different tutorials, and gave it a try.  Our microwave broke in December, so I melted the marshmallow and a teaspoon of water over the stove.

Then I smeared shortening on my “kitchen island” and sifted half a pound of powdered sugar on top.

I dumped the marshmallow onto the table, smeared, kneaded, and mushed, and eventually had a pretty ball of fondant.  I put it in the fridge for later.

The next day, I made the actual cake.  I have sworn off box mixes (they tend to make my kids swing from the chandeliers and such) so I made Barefoot Contessa’s Beatty’s Chocolate Cake. Oh, that cake batter was divine.

And since I was just a teensy bit emotional that day, seeing how it was the actual Birthday of Ellen, I could have just sat myself in the floor of that kitchen with the bowl and had myself some chocolate therapy.  But I let Ellen enjoy the batter instead.  And she did.

We baked the cake in a large bowl, a small bowl, and a loaf pan.  That gave me a head, body, and something to cut arms and legs out of.  Figuring out those arms and legs was a bit of a struggle.  I stood in the kitchen and scratched my head a good bit while the kids flitted around asking me things like, “Are we done yet, Mommy?  How come it doesn’t look like a pig?  Can I eat the fondant?  Where’s his eyes?”

The next day, I mixed up Ina’s Cream Cheese Icing recipe and put a crumb coat on the refrigerated cake pieces.

Then they went back into the refrigerator for another night.  Friday was the big day of Pig Creation.  I got out the body and gave that another good coat of icing.  I did the same to the arms and legs, trimmed where I needed to, and put the pig together.  I decided the pig trotters looked more authentic without icing, so they stayed plain ol’ chocolate.  Then I broke out the fondant.

I watched another video for how to color the fondant properly.  I split the ball in half.  I put two drops of coloring in the middle of one of the balls, closed the fondant up around it, and started kneading.

When the color was distributed evenly throughout the first half, I wrapped the second half of fondant around the first and kneaded them together.

The kids watched this all intently, so I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised when I found them up to their elbows in food coloring in the kitchen.  I’d given them fondant to play with and left them alone with a bottle of Wilton red coloring.  They knew just what to do with it.  I couldn’t fuss too much since they’d done the procedure “correctly.”  I just made a mental note to put away the food coloring before exiting the kitchen next time.

I used the fondant for the ears, the snout, and the tail.  It was fun to play with and it didn’t taste that bad.  But I don’t know if I’d enjoy it all over a cake.  Mostly because I wanted to bathe myself in a vat of that cream cheese frosting.  One more time, just because I’m a proud artiste, here’s the pig.

And that’s how I did it.  Now go forth and make your own pig.