Christmas Cake Decoration

After making my Christmas cakes a few weeks ago and feeding them Brandy once a week, the time has now come to marzipan and ice them.  I was being quite lazy when I bought the ready rolled marzipan and icing but it saves a bit of time and also, they will definitely be more evenly rolled out than I would ever be able to do them!

You will need:

Apricot Jam (seedless)
Marzipan (I used white marzipan as I don’t like the taste of the yellow)
Icing sugar for dusting
Icing
Cake board
Ribbon
Anything you want to decorate your cake with

To start, take your cake out of the tin it has been living in for the last few weeks and cut a small bit off the top of the cake to flatten it and then turn upside down so the bottom is now the top.  You now have a smooth top to decorate with.  I only discovered this tip recently while watching Cake Boss as in previous years I have had lumpy, bumpy cakes, seems pretty obvious now it has been pointed out to me :)!

Warm up the apricot jam in a pan and then using a pastry brush, coat the jam all over the cake so it is nice and sticky for the marzipan to go on.

If you need to roll out your marzipan do that next(apparently using caster sugar on the board prevents it sticking when rolling it out)or if you are lazy like me then unwrap the marzipan and follow instructions on the box on how to unroll. Place the marzipan onto the cake and smooth out using your hands and make sure the cake is completely covered.

The marzipan needs 24-48 hours to dry out, you can do it sooner if you are going to be eating the cake shortly after decorating, otherwise the marzipan oils will seep through the icing.

Follow the instructions for rolling out the icing if needed (use icing sugar this time to prevent the icing sticking to your board) or the box if using ready rolled. Place the icing over the cake and smooth out using your hands, cut off any excess icing around the cake. You can use the remaining icing to decorate your cake. I then put a ribbon around the cake and used glue dots so the ribbon could stick to itself. I have snowflake cutters that I used to cut out different sized snowflakes and applied them to the cake using edible glue, I then used edible glitter to make the snowflakes sparkle. This cake is part of a Christmas gift for my Auntie and Uncle.

I do have a Santa Claus and Sleigh cake decoration that I will put on my own cake, I will post a photo on Twitter of it on Christmas Eve. I would love to see a picture of your cakes if you have made one, if you do post it on Twitter you can follow me on there @wannabeDG.