Iggle Piggle cake decoration

My little girl is approaching her first birthday and I've been looking at getting her a professional cake. I was surprised that the ones I liked started at £65!!

 
In The Night Garden and Iggle Piggle are amazingly popular with babies and toddlers. Birthday cakes can be expensive, so why not bake a basic sponge and top it with this simple Iggle Piggle design?
 

You will need...

• Icing
• Blue food colouring
• Red food colouring
• A knife
• A teaspoon or cocktail stick
• A rolling pin (optional)
• Grease proof paper
• A pen

 
1. Print and trace a drawing of Iggle Piggle, I used the one from the BBC colouring sheet


2. You need to make your icing blue.

• Shape the icing so that there is a dip in the middle, then with the end of teaspoon drip a couple of drops of colour.
• Fold the colour into the icing, trying not to directly touch the colour while it is unmixed and wet
• Shape the icing again and then add a couple more drops
• Fold the icing until the colour is evenly spread

 3. Make sure that the greaseproof paper is shiny side up so that your the icing doesn't stick. This may mean Iggle Piggle faces the other way, depending on which side of the paper you drew your design.
 

4. We're now going to start filling in the design. When I first started I thought I was going to cut out each shape with a knife and then put them back together like a jigsaw, but after the first couple of pieces (head and main body) I just started to take chunks of icing and moulded them into shape with my fingers (using the lines on the greaseproof paper as a guide)
 
5. Using slightly damp fingers blend the pieces and shapes together and smooth out any rough edges or marks

 
6. Take two small pieces of white icing and makes eyes, and two small balls of icing to make pupils (these should really be black but I didn't have anything suitable) Then make a blue nose and white smile.
 

7. Colour some icing red (as described in step 2) and finish off the design with four pieces of red hair and Iggle Piggle's trademark blanket. (I went outside the guide here). I also put a couple of small pieces of red under Iggle Piggle's feet for definition.

8. Allow to dry for around 24 hours and then gently peel the backing paper/drawing away.

 
9. Keep in an air tight container until the big day
 
10. Stick your fantastic, homemade, Iggle Piggle cake decoration to any cake with jam or a little bit of icing sugar and water...
 
Now isn't that a pip!!!

When you look at the finished picture above, the blue looks a little patchy and shiny, this is for two reasons - the first is that it is still slightly wet and needs to dry/harden, the second is that I used a completely natural food colour. If I'd used a stronger blue dye the results would have been better (but slightly less baby friendly).