Totally amateur cake decorating - will this work for DD's birthday?

[FannyPriceless]

She wants a chocolate cake with Peppa Pig jumping in muddy puddles on the top. I have never attempted this sort of thing before.

Here's my plan - please tell me if it will work:

1. Make chocolate cake (nice easy recipe I've used before from MN)
2. Buy ready made green icing. (I found some ready to roll at Lakeland that I hope is the right sort of thing..?)
3. Roll this out and cover cake to make the grassy hill.
4. Make some easy chocolate mud icing myself to make the puddles.
5. Stick plastic Peppa Pig on the top, along with some ready made icing flowers.

Is this the best / easiest way to do it? Anything likely to go wrong? Is there an easier way to do any of this?

She thinks I can do this stuff because I bluffed my way through the last cake - a ready bought cake with a plastic Thomas engine plonked on top that she thought was amazing! Help me.

The lakeland ready roll icing is realy good and easy to work with, make the chocolate cake, cover it in chocolate butter icing (thin layer all over) and then put your icing on. I have made grass before using a garlic press. Should be quite easy and i'm sure a plastic peppa will be fine.

sounds perfect
before you put the readymade green icing on I put a layer of buttercream round the cake so the icing sticks and keeps the cake nice and moist.

if you are going to do it this way, perhaps once you have covered the cake with the green icing you could roughly cut some puddles out of the green icing to reveal the brown buttercream - mud- for pepper to be jumping in.

if you can, have enough green icing to go over the board as well as the cake, then you can put a few flowers roung the bottom as well

She will LOVE it!!!!

Thanks both, that's really helpful. I didn't know about the buttercream icing underneath so thank you!

Fanny, if you check out Neverknowinglys profile pics, theres a fab pic of pepperpig, something to follow if your gonna make your own.

NANNY it is GEORGE PIG..

ooh and thanks

Oh god so it is, i'm hopeless! i'm always getting them mixed as my grandson keeps pointing out to me!!

if it has a dinosaur it is george - he never goes anywhere without his dinosaur

Oh my god! What amazing cakes NKU, you sly old thing.

All I can say is, I must never let my children see those photos or they will be expecting a whole different level of cake art!

I have another question: if I am making a 20 cm square cake, is one packet of Lakeland green icing enough to cover it? Or will I need two? It's 250 g per packet.

Think you'll need more than one as thats an 8inch cake, i used just 2lbs, had abit left over, its better to be safe than sorry, google it and you'll find out how much you'll need, or have a look at my pics to see if thats any help.

Oooh lovely OP! Will be fab!

Betty crocker does a fine line of pre-made butter icing, chocolate fudge is good, in a tub in the bakery section of supermarket.

I had to make 3 George Pig cakes for DS's first birthday, as we live in a small bungalow so I did 3 small parties! Exhausting, but fun and I still love George!

personally I would get one of these

but I'm lazy