gumpaste pig tutorial

ok so here goes my first attempt at a tutorial!
if you are a fan of Arbitrary Cakes on facebook you will know that i am taking suggestions for things you would like to see in a tutorial, but in the mean time, when i have a cake to do (and if i have time!) i will take pics as i go with the good intentions to turn it into tutorials!

i am doing a farm themed cake this weekend so here is the pig i just made and i will try to explain what i did!

sorry about the photo quality, i made this at night and the lighting is terrible!


here goes.......

firstly i started with pink fondant, which i kneaded in a little tylose to make a kind of gumpaste and rolled out 4 legs, and poking some dry spaghetti through each leg (you can use toothpicks or wire but i like to make mine out of completely edible components whenever possible) i then rolled out a tiny bit of black fondant and used a round piping tip number 12 to cut out circles for the hoofs, and poked onto the spaghetti and glued (water with a pinch of tylose powder, but plain water works just as well) in place.

 i have poked the legs into a piece of florist oasis covered in glad wrap, but you could also use polystyrene.



then roll out a small piece of paste to quite skinny and wrap around a tooth pick or something similar to make a tail.. (for delicate pieces i like to make a couple extras as they are prone to breaking, so i would make maybe 3 wee tails and set aside to go hard, usually overnight.





















brush the top of the legs and spaghetti with glue and then form some more pink paste into a ball and place it on top of the legs

















roll a smaller ball for the head, and insert some spaghetti, glue and poke into the body, use some balled up glad wrap to hold the head in place until the glue has set (see photo below)











make a small oval shape for the snout and indent for the nostrils, then glue into place on the head



















poke a hole on the bum for where the tail will go, make sure it is wide enough to actually fit the end of your tail in, as you need to let the tail dry completely so that it is hard when you insert it.

























make two little triangles and then indent the insides to look like ears. glue into place on head

i used an edible ink pen to draw the eyes, but you could paint on with food colouring, or make tiny dots out of black fondant.









and lastly remove the glad wrap support and voila! you have a cute little pig perfect for a farm themed cake!

i will post a photo of the finished cake when it is all together!

 i hope this was helpful, it is very basic and you can adapt and add any extra details you want to fit you needs, you could add a little bow on the head to make it a girl pig!


let me know what you think! and if you have a questions feel free to ask!