Peppa Pig birthday cake for a 2-year-old

We've been celebrating a few birthdays in this household lately. First celebration was big boy's 7th birthday, then mine less than three weeks later, and finally baby girl's birthday two weeks later. We were actually not going to do anything more than just a simple celebration amongst the four of us like last year, and besides, how much can a 2-year-old appreciate a birthday do? I should know by now to never underestimate the power of a mother's guilt - yes the guilt got to me once again. Baby girl has two good friends a few months younger than her who also live in the same complex as us, and the three of them play with each other almost everyday at the playground. We invited these two girls over to our tiny apartment to celebrate baby girl turning 2, and I am glad we made the effort because baby girl loved everything - her friends coming over to play, the presents, the cake. She was still singing the "Happy Birthday" song a week after her birthday. It was easy to choose the cake theme, as Peppa Pig is one of my girl's favourite - and easily recognisable - characters. Due to time constraints, I kept the cake decorating simple. Since I wanted a durable cake for carving, I used the same cake recipe that I used for my son's birthday cake. I also used the same easy frosting recipe, and added a little bit of pink colouring. The basics of decorating with frosting - such as freezing the cake before carving, 'glueing' the cake to the cake board with a dab of frosting, and applying a crumb coat first - made the frosting process relatively painless. This was the easiest and simplest themed birthday cake I've made so far, but the other two mums were still gobsmacked that I baked and decorated it myself. The things we do for our kids :)

The cake:

Birthday girl blowing out the candles: