Peppa Pig Fruit 'Cake'

Since making Bubbles a cake out of fruit for her second birthday, my husband and I've become fast fans of fruit cakes. 

We decided to get a little more creative this year and we created a Peppa Pig 'cake' for Bubbles to take to daycare and a train 'cake' for her birthday party. I'll post about the train cake later when I blog about Bubbles third birthday party but here is the Peppa Pig cake and how I went about making it, I was very pleased with the platter and just a little bit proud. :)

First of all I grabbed Bubbles copy of Peppa Pig and The Biggest Muddy Puddle in the World and flicked through until I found the largest picture of Peppa in the book. I then used a piece of baking paper and a pencil to trace around Peppa.

I took my tracing into the kitchen and got hubby to slice a flat circle of watermelon for me. I placed my tracing over the watermelon and used a knife to stab a dot-to-dot style tracing pattern of Peppa's head, arms, legs and tail through the paper and onto the watermelon. After that I simply removed the paper and carved around the dots. I had a lot of trouble with the tail and after I threw a tantrum hubby came to the rescue and carved one from sight-I'm so lucky to have such a creative husband. :)

I used the end of a metal piping novel to cut some eyes from a slice of banana and then used some sultanas as pupils and nostrils as you can see.

A slice of apple worked for the cheek and after much anguish about not wanting to use any processed sugar I caved and used a red gel icing pen for Peppa's mouth.

For Peppa's boots I used my tracing paper again to cut some boots from banana.

Finally I used the picture as a guide to position some strawberries into place as Peppa's dress.

Really, a very simple 'cake' to make but it was a favourite with Bubbles and I was really pleased with how it looked too. :)

Just a note if you're looking at making something similar: Making this the night before doesn't work, the watermelon goes soft, the banana a horrible icky brown and the icing is absorbed.

Variation idea: Originally I'd planned on making two of these and creating a George by placing blueberries in a circle where the strawberries are. In similar thinking, I think you could make a whole family by making a dress out of mandarin for Mummy Pig and a kiwi fruit suit for Daddy Pig. I'd also planned on having Peppa jumping in a muddy puddle made out of sultanas but didn't think it'd last the car ride to daycare.