BLOG: Pigs in the Mud - Peanut Butter Fudge Cake

Recently, I came across an adorable cake that was surrounded by KitKat Bars with fondant pigs swimming in a mound of chocolate frosting.

I found the picture on my Google+ account, it was adorable and the pigs just made me laugh. But, the only thing I knew about the cake was a link, Pigs in Mud Cake, and there was no recipe. I decided to post it on my Friends Food Family Facebook Fan Page expecting the same amount of comments that I normally receive on a post...5 Likes, 4 Comments and 3 Shares.

After a large response to the picture, people were looking for the recipe. I called by daughter, Danielle, and asked if she wanted to take on the project of constructing a pig cake. She agreed and I told her I would have the ingredients set to go for the following night. I started at the local craft store to look for fondant. The best way to describe it is food play-dough. It allows you to mold figures as well as frost cakes. I was able to find Duff's Fondant, the cake creator from Ace of Cakes. He has a line of fondant which happens to come in many different colors. I grabbed a pink and white container of the fondant. Since I wasn't sure of the brightness to the pink, I wanted something to soften the color. I stopped by the ribbon section and bought a flowery designed ribbon to tie around the cake. 

Next stop was the grocery store. I didn't want to make a cake from scratch (I can't believe that came out of my mouth!) so I grabbed a box of Devil's Food Cake, a few packages of Kit Kat bars, bittersweet chocolate bits and some heavy cream. I mention making this cake with chocolate cake and peanut butter frosting, but you can make your cake in any flavor. The consistency to the cake is the KitKat Bars, chocolate ganache and the pigs.

We mixed the cake according to directions and placed the batter in two 8" cake pans. In the future, I will probably use a 9" pan. The cake was a bit higher than expected and I think the 9" cake pan will work perfectly. While the cake was baking, we made the bittersweet chocolate ganache and set it aside to cool and then started mixing the frosting. We decided to use our homemade peanut butter frosting because of the dark chocolate ganache. Over the past few years, we have been making a cake we call the Reese's Peanut Butter Cake. It starts with a dark chocolate cake, creamy (whipped) peanut butter frosting and then we cover it in chocolate ganache. It is a huge hit, wherever we take it. Oh, and don't worry, there are no calories...

After the cake and ganache were both cooled, we started frosting the cake with the peanut butter frosting. We kept the center and top frosting layers thinner than the sides. We didn't want the cake to be too high. You don't realize that KitKats come in one size and there isn't much length.

We opened the Kit Kat's and broke them into sets of 2 bars. We had some height issues so we took a bag of Hershey's Mini Kisses and put a row of them at the bottom of the cake. We then placed the KitKats above the kisses giving the KitKat fence for the pigs the right height.

We put the cake aside and started making our pigs. The pink fondant was very bright, almost neon pink. We decided to add white to the pink to soften the color. We were looking for a color closer to fleshy pink. In hindsight, we probably should have mixed the pink fondant into the white. It would have given the white a perfect rosy color.

NOTE: Please look at the pigs on the cake for ideas. We also found a video on making fondant pigs at Candy Ribbon Sweets. It is worth watching especially if you are looking to be a little creative with your pigs.

Once your pigs are made allow them to sit for a bit, ours were a little sticky, atleast a half hour. Swirl the chocolate ganache on the top of the cake. It should be thick almost like the consistency of mud, which will allow you to play with the texture. Place your pigs in the mud. Our pigs were probably bigger than the original photo but I do like that they fill the pig pen.

Tie a ribbon around the cake and you are done!

We hope you enjoy the cake as much as we did. We are looking forward to making the "Pigs in the Mud" Cake again. Our biggest problem...we didn't want to cut it because it looked too (pig) pretty!

For the full recipe, click here - Pigs in the Mud Cake.