I want to make an iggle piggle cake for my dd's birthday

[lucysmam]

Any cake-makers out there able to offer some advice?

I have a vague idea that I could make a large, square cake in a tin that I have and then cut it into the shape of Iggle. But, what sort of cake carves well? Also, if I want to put some buttercream or similar in the middle, would you advise doing this before or after cutting it into shape?

Also, what sort of icing would you use for the blue colur? Ready to roll stuff with blue colouring? Or something else?

And, do you know where I could get natural food colourings? As I have visions of blue icing making the kids who we will have bounce off the walls & ceiling. Although I'm not too bothered about that, it's only one day so won't kill them (I hope)

Any advice anyone could offer would be fab. Thank-you

use a madeira cake base - is firmer than ordinary sponge. Some books suggest freezing the cake ot aid in carving it but I never bother. I don't put buttercream in the middle for a not too high cake as I don't thin kit needs it. Sugarpaste is easy to handle and you can mould details - that is what I would use. No idea re natural food colourings, especially blue. As a one off is ok I would have thought - if using sugarpaste use the paste colours, liquid colourings make it go sticky.

Oooh hope someone knows, I would like to make my ds one aswell, or a mickey mouse one, he loves them both!

If it'd be to hard to do I have seen on ebay you can buy icing sheets that you just put on top of a normal cake & they have night garden designs, they do look quite good.

alternative - just cover a cake in white sugarpaste, and paint on the picture - download a pic form cbeebies to use as template. I dilute food colourings and have a few brushes just for cakes - am not arty at all but using an outline and tracing it through onto the sugarpaste is easy.

PandaG, you're a star. Thank-you very much

shout if you need any more help, I enjoy baking. If you are in the Sheffield area you can borrow my stuff - have lots of cake making equipment.

I'm near Sheffield, not been there in forever though.

Have a very small selection of stuff of my own atm, just learning to bake & cook from scratch. MIL has given me a big tin to do their xmas cake in so will have a practise run & see how I get on. May be back in the next couple of days with more questions depending on how I get on.

Thanks for the advice, it's very much appreciated

I have another question already . . . how do you make sugarpaste (sure this is going to be very obvious when I know) or can you buy it?

buy it - you can make it but is a real faff to do, and bought stuff better. Is another name for ready roll icing. YOu can get it in a supermarket, but is usually cheaper in a specialist cake shop - where you can also get the paste food colours. Can get it from online shops too - in fact if no specialsit cake shoip near you may be a good idea to get colouring online, and sugarpaste in supermarket as would be heavy to post.

I love my cake supplies shop - I go in and tell the woman how big the cake is and she sells me the right amount of sugarpaste!

There's a stall on Donny market I've just discovered that hire cake tins and decorations (you know like the 'happy birthday' banner type things you can get). I'll pop there over the weekend and see if they sell colouring. If not, do you know of any good online sellers?

no, sorry, no personal recommendation as have fab shop in Sheff that I use. Sure someone else here would have though.

I did what PandaG said, using blue icing in a big tube, and white ready made icing.
Pic on my profile.

Jas, I never saw Iggle when I was noseying at the train the other week! He looks like he was quite easy . . . I'm going to have a practice run both ways over the next 2 weeks (yum, plenty of cake for me to munch) & see which turns out better

The train was his first birthday.

I printed a picture off the cbeebies website and copied it onto the cake. It was good ehough to please a two year old!

Can I make a suggestion....

Make a square cake? Cover in red icing....claim it is Iggle Piggle's blanket that he has lost

Sorry - couldn't resist

I did this for DD2's 2nd birthday, just iced a vague picture of Igglepiggle on a white cake, as like you I didn't want to have huge amounts of blue icing sending kids spinning around the room, she loved it! For DD1's 5th I did a Cinderella cake, the picture was painted on with food colouring. I find that as long as it is recognisable most kids are happy, it doesn't have to be a perfect reproduction for a small child to be happy.

Good luck!

Just googled this

Ooh ooh I did this for DS's 1st birthday. I don't make cakes very often but it worked out - did two round sandwich tins and then cut the head out of one by following the curves and the body out of the other and used spare bits to model the nose. Then I made a blanket out of icing.

The shape turned out well but my mistake was to try to make my own icing - should def have used ready to roll icing rather than that as it all dripped off. Also the paste colouring rather than the liquid would have been good because I had to add loads of red for the blanket and then it didn't taste very nice. But the cake itself did taste nice.

I'll put a pic on profile - it has an amateur charm, I feel (although I did worry at the time that it looked like he had been run over and the blanket was his guts!!)

DS was pleased btw!

havent read all the post so may be repeating, I am obsessed with finding natural ways to colour icing as have a real hang up about the e number colourws, for some reason. I have to tell you that blue is the hardest colour. This year for ds2 I did a Macka Packa cake as can just use cocoa powder to make brown icing of any shade. I also did a smaller round one for family with a modified chocolate Freddo on as Macka Packa! For ds1 last year did a dinosaur, as requested, using spinach powder for green icing, which you can get off the internet, also some natural pink powder for a pink colour. Can find the site for you if you wish. The only way I have managed to do blue is to add blueberry puree to the icing sugar (heat up blueberries, mash, sieve through a sieve to remove skins) but, tbh, it comes out a bit more purple and may not be very Iggle Piggleish. Would he settle for Macka Packa - worked really well, icing sugar, butter, cocoa powder, couple of round cakes, one big, one small, large choc buttons for eyes with dab white icing sugar in middle, bits of chocolate freddos for pebbles on top. Job done (though took me untol 2 am the night before of course ...)

makka pakka looks llike a big boob from the back -has anyone else noticed?

red/pink icing is easy to make, I use pureed strawberries or raspberries, and it tastes fantastic. Just push them through a sieve and add icing sugar, no water needed. Not figured out a natural blue, so used food colouring and kept it to a minimum!

Pic is there now. If I had used the roll out icing it would have looked better cos the edges would have been smoother.

x post with GreenMonkies, have used strawberries and rasberries too - how can we do blue - there must be a way! Green can use pepermint of course but gives it a taste. For yellow you can buy a "natural" food colour which has no E numbers on the bottle. Not sure what it is made of though.

Don't know why I obsess over this, the amount of junk they eat the rest of the year .....

think it was at a friend of ds1's party where the child had a shop bought car cake and seeing the kids put massive lumps of black and red icing into their mouths, whole black tyres etc staining their teethes, and the resulting carnage afterwards. Also when I realised that red food colouring is made of crushed up beetles, yuk.

You could make a cake that is a night garden landscape and buy some little characters to put on the top. I.E. green with some shop bought icing flowers.

Would turmeric work for yellow? Or saffron?