



HAPPY CHRISTMAS EVE
Hello, big apologies for not posting recently. Birthdays (mine included!!!), Christmas preparation, children breaking up from school, flu bugs etc have simply left me with zero time to write. So I thought I’d let you Meet Our Penguins!

But I’m back and have been up since 4.30 this morning – so I thought I’d finally get round to icing our Christmas cake. I had already iced and decorated and delivered my parents – in – law’s cake, but not had the time, or energy to do ours!

So their cake was my second attempt at fondant icing. The bottom of the cake wasn’t brilliant so a silver ribbon secured with a pearl pin covered all my mistakes and my Ma and Pa – in – law were delighted!! It must be said, I have yet to meet anybody who loves Christmas cake as much as they do, so it’ll be interesting to see if it has made it all the way to Spain!!!!!
Today I woke up early and popped downstairs, in the beautiful, peaceful, quiet of a sleeping house and set about decorating our cake and more importantly, giving our Penguins and Snowman a playground!

I will take you through, step by step, the fun I had decorating this years Christmas cake.
For the cake recipe itself, please see
Recipes: Christmas Cake.
For the smaller cake, I used half the cake mixture. Both cakes were covered in marzipan and the fondant in exactly the same way – although the smaller cake obviously used less!! The smaller cake, being only my second attempt at fondant icing, wasn’t finished very neatly at the bottom, where the cake meets the board. This was solved by the addition of a pretty, silver ribbon, strategically placed around the rim of the cake and secured with a pearl topped pin!!!!
PREPARING THE CAKE :
Place your Cake onto the cake board (not the cake stand as I did initially and then got myself covered in jam as I realised my mistake and transferred it to the board!!!!).
Heat approx 3 large tablespoons of apricot jam in a saucepan, on a low heat, until the jam is slightly runny. At this stage you can then sieve the jam to remove any lumps. I didn’t bother as the jam I’d bought was fairly smooth – and it was 5am and I really couldn’t be bothered!!! But feel free to sieve if you want to – remember, it’s just there as a ‘glue’ for the Marzipan to stick to, so no one will see it!!!!
Next, using a pastry brush, completely slather the top and sides of the cake with the jam. Don’t worry if some drips on the board as this can be wiped off later. It really is important to cover the cake thoroughly as the jam will act as the ‘glue’ to which the marzipan sticks.

COVERING WITH MARZIPAN :
Unfortunately Marzipan isn’t as flexible as fondant icing. It has a tendency to tear when rolled into a large disc and draped over the cake, which is the method I use for fondant. As the marzipan will be covered by the fondant icing, I use a different method!
Firstly make sure that you have the cake tin in which you baked you cake to hand. This will be used as a template for the top of the cake and a rough guide for the sides.
On a clean board or worktop place a light dusting of icing sugar, also dust your rolling pin. Take the Marzipan out of the packet (I used a 500g packet each for both cakes. My in- laws love marzipan so I just rolled there’s thicker! Lightly dust your hands with icing sugar a gently knead the marzipan so that it becomes softer and more pliable. As a guide at this point I divide the marzipan into 2 equal balls.
Roll out the first ball, taking care to make sue the marzipan does not become stuck to the worktop. When it looks roughly the size of the top of the cake place the cake tin on top of the marzipan. If it’s not quite big enough roll a little more until you have just over the size of the cake tin. Then using the cake tin as a template, place on top and cut around with a knife.
Using the rolling pin to drape the marzipan over, place the marzipan disc on top of the sticky cake.
Don’t Worry – if the disc isn’t centralised the jam will make it easy to slide the marzipan into the correct position!!!
Next shape the I the half of the marzipan into a square and roll until youhave a long strip of marzipan, using the side of the cake tin as a guide. It’s very hard to get an even length, but don’t worry you then just trim the sides before placing the strip of marzipan around the side of the cake.

If there are any small gaps, use the off cut pieces of marzipan to fill them.

COVERING THE CAKE WITH FONDANT ICING :
Now that the cake is covered in marzipan, the hard bit is over!!! Covering with fondant is going to be a doddle!!!
Firstly, completely clear and wipe down your worktop or board and rolling pin. When you’re working with white fondant, the tiniest speck of anything will show up – that said DON’T STRESS!! Decorations can always be used to hide the odd speck!!
To cover the large cake I used 750g of White Fondant icing.

Knead the fondant with hands lightly dusted in icing sugar. When nice and pliable form into a ball.

Pat the ball into an even disc shape. Using your rolling pin, roll outwards from the centre of the disc, turning the disc by a quarter before rolling again. Ensure there is plenty of icing sugar on the worktop so that the fondant moves freely.

Using the cake tin, again, as a guide, roll out the fondant so that it is wide enough to cover the top and sides of the cake, allowing a good extra couple of centimetres all round to allow for the added marzipan layer.

If you prefer to be more exact with your measurements, add the width ( diameter = D) of the tin plus 2 x the height (H) of the tin plus 2cm.
D + (2 x H) + 2cm = Total width of rolled fondant.
Ensure all measurements use the same unit ie – cm.
Use your rolling pin to drape the fondant over and carefully centralise over the top of the cake. Moving swiftly drape the fondant over the cake.
Note: if the fondant tears badly, remove and start again – the thickness should be that of a £1 coin. Too thick and the fondant will be too heavy and tear, too thin and the fondant will not be strong enough to take the weight of draping.

Working swiftly, use your hands to smooth the fondant over the top and sides of the cake. I found I almost had to ‘tuck in’ the sides of the cake. There will be excess around the sides, just keep smoothing and gradually a beautiful smooth, snow coloured, cake will begin to appear!
Using a small, sharp knife, cut away the excess fondant from the base leaving a good 1-2 cm of excess attached. Pat and tuck this fondant until the side of the cake is completely covered and using the fondant press down to form a seal with the cake board. This will help to keep your cake fresher for longer. However if, like me with the smaller cake, you have an uneven finish around the base, remember you can always cover it with ribbon!!!!

DECORATING YOUR ICED CAKE:
Now the real fun begins!!!
For the smaller cake I cut out a shooting star, using a cutter dusted with icing sugar. I dipped my finger in warm water and dampened the back of the shooting star, this allowed me to ‘stick’ it to the top of the cake. Then using edible glue I outlined the star with silver dragée balls. An elegant and travel friendly decoration (thanks Delia for the inspiration!).

PENGUINS AND SNOWFLAKES :
Seeing as I decided to go ‘off piste’ with my icing this year – usually I use Royal Icing but on a whim, I decided to live dangerously and opt for Fondant. Chuckle you may, but given that one of the Christmas cakes was a gift and I’d actually only ever used Fondant icing once before, I would say that counts as dangerous. But then I like to live life on the edge!!!!!
Seriously, or not, though, is bought the 6 super cute Penguins, The Snowman and for some strange, whimsical reason, thought it’d be fun to have the Penguins skating on an iced lake with The Snowman watching over. That was as organised as I got with the decoration!!!!
So at 6am Christmas Eve my vague idea started to take shape. Firstly I took a blob (approx 70g) of pale blue fondant, kneaded it until soft and formed it into a rough ball shape. Then I rolled it out, a little haphazardly! The shape you see on the cake is literally the shape I ended up with!!!

Then using 3 different sizes of snowflake, plunge cutters (designed for sugar craft) I cut out different sizes of snowflakes. I attached them and the blue, ice lake using edible glue.
NOTE : Use icing sugar to dust your cutters to prevent the fondant from sticking – it only took me half a dozen goes before I realised this!!!!
I placed the snowflakes in an irregular pattern around the side of the cake, allowing some of the smaller snowflakes to edge the top, some falling over the edge. As the lake was an irregular shape, visually I think this worked better than a regular pattern.
I mixed up a thick paste of icing powder, a teaspoon of meringue powder and a little water, to make royal icing. This would ensure the Penguins and Snowman stuck firmly to the cake and board.
Using a small knife I pasted a small amount of the Royal icing to the base of the Snowman and Penguins and placed them on the cake. Honestly this was the best bit! As I was adding the Penguins they all seemed to have their own little personalities. Yes I know we are talking about inedible cake decorations – just look at their little faces and you will see what I mean!

Overall the cake, in my opinion, just has a balance to it. Whilst it isn’t symmetrical it is balanced, but most of all FUN! I’m so glad you got to Meet Our Penguins!
Most of all, I would like to wish everyone a Happy, Peaceful Christmas and Fun, Exciting 2015. Sammie xxxxx
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