Peppa Pig Family Car Cake

I was looking forward to making another Peppa Pig car cake, this time for Isha's 3rd birthday. I baked it up in the same Spongebob Square Pants pan as I did for the previous car cake, but since this cake needed to feed more people for a total of 2.5kg, I slid a larger 12" square cake underneath the car, so it essentially became a two-tier cake!

Peppa Pig's family car cake

Both the car and the "grass" cakes are Devil's Food Cake, filled with whipped dark chocolate ganache. I always use a Swiss meringue buttercream dam around the edge of each cake layer so that the ganache filling doesn't ooze out once all the layers are stacked together. I also crumb coat the entire cake with the same buttercream so that there is a smooth surface for the fondant to stick to. I leave the buttercream white (vanilla) instead of adding cocoa powder for chocolate because sometimes when the cake is covered in fondant, some excess buttercream will squish out from the bottom and chocolate would stain the fondant. 

whipped dark chocolate ganache filling

crumb coat with vanilla Swiss meringue buttercream

I was quite pleased with the smooth fondant finish that I as able to achieve on this car. The "inside" of the car didn't need to be covered with red fondant, since the black fondant  floor and the seats would cover it anyway. For the seats, I cut rectangles out of chocolate fondant and bent them into "L" shapes, letting them dry until they were stiff enough to stand on their own without dropping, before sticking them onto the cake. 

red fondant covered car

adding details onto the car

The bottom grass cake was covered in fondant using the panel method, which is rolling and cutting a long rectangular strip of fondant and wrapping it around the cake's perimeter, and then cutting another piece as the "lid" for the top of the cake. I used my PME lined roller to add texture to the grass. 

An important thing to mention is that the car is sitting on it's own cake board, and there are wooden dowels supporting its weight on the bottom tier. If the car was stacked directly on top of the bottom cake layer without any supports, it would just sink and cave in due to the weight!

Car plates with the birthday girl's name on it

I made the Pig family figurines in advance and kept them in an airtight container until I was ready to stick them on top of the cake. Daddy Pig's arms are always the last to be put on since he has to hold the steering wheel. He mustve gained a little weight since the last time I made this car cake because now his tummy is touching the steering wheel! 

Peppa Pig family fondant figurines

For the windshield, I just cut a piece of plastic from the lid of a disposable plastic food container. Of course, I had to give a heads up to Isha's mummy to remove the plastic, as well as the support dowels in the cake before serving, just to be safe. 

view from the side

back of the cake

To finish the cake, I added little fondant daises around the grass part of the cake to break up the monotony of green. The daisies were cut out using plunger cutters. The yellow centres of the flowers are yellow buttercream. 

all ready to drive to the party

At the school, I made sure that the teacher brought it into the classroom without Isha seeing it first, since I wanted it to be a surprise 'til her parents got there to celebrate with her and her classmates! 

view from the top

(pic courtesy of Isha's mummy)

Apparently, there was more than enough cake to go around, and the kids only ended up eating the grass part of the cake! Isha's mummy was able to take the cake back and have a 2nd birthday celebration at home! The cake is nice and shiny from the condensation since it had been in the fridge, but it's still as nice and chocolatey and yummy as ever. 

Happy 3rd Birthday, Isha!