A Christening Cake with a history. 3 years on our final tier of wedding cake transformed.

Posted by aroundtheworldin80bakes in Around the World in Eighty Bakes, cake, cake decoration, Fruit Cake, sugar craft, wedding and tagged with alcoholic cakes, brandy, cake, Celebration, Christening, Duck egg blue, fruit cake, Occasion, Polka dots, Preserving, Preserving wedding cake, sugar craft, Top tier of wedding cake, Traditional English cake, wedding 03/02/2016

Christening cake. Two tiered iced fruit cake with duck egg blue polka dots and bunting

Christening cake with a history. In a previous life it was a tier in our wedding cake. 3 years on it’s had a make over and tasted great!

As you may recall I got a bit carried away when baking our 5 tier fruit cake for our wedding almost 3 years ago. I ended up baking 8 cakes in total (!) We managed to eat most of the cakes but had one 7 inch round cake left. So I carefully wrapped the cake in greaseproof paper and tin foil and popped it in a biscuit tin and put it in the back of the cupboard and forgot about it. It managed to survive our house move and kitchen renovations too!

image of 3 year old fruit cake preserved in brandy ready for transforming into christening cakle

The original 3 year old wedding cake, full of booze and deeper in flavour and colour.

It’s a well known English tradition that you save the top tier of your wedding cake for the christening of your first child. Fruit cake keeps extremely well, provided you give it a good drink of booze every now and then. It also needs to be kept in a dry cool environment. It’s important to store it in a tin, not a plastic container, as the cake will sweat in plastic. And sweat means mould which you really don’t want! A layer of greaseproof paper and tin foil helps to stop the cake from drying out and keep the booze, which preserves the cake, in.
Every time I moved the cake (about once a year) I had a quick peek in the foil and topped it up with the orange brandy liqueur that I used in our original wedding cake. Drizzling just enough booze over the top of the cake to make it slightly damp (about 2-3 tbs). After 2 years I replaced the paper and foil.

The actual wedding cake in it’s moment of glory. (Any excuse to include another photo of it…)

I was a bit nervous about feeding a 3 year old fruit cake to my family but on close inspection the cake looked absolutely perfect just much darker than when I first baked it from absorbing all that delicious brandy.

I had such high ambitions and a million ideas on how to decorate the cake but with very limited time and a 5 month old baby who needs feeding every hour or so my ability to make fondant hot air balloons and elephants totally escaped me. And to be honest sugar craft has never been my strong point!

I gave up sugar crafting and instead ate a lump of marzipan with a cup of tea.

As a compromise I opted for the smoothest finish I could manage of white fondant with duck egg blue polka dot design (much simpler and quicker!) And a year later I realise I’ve clearly got an unhealthy obsession with duck egg blue polka dots as I’ve just decorated the little one’s room in them too!

Image of duck egg blue and gold polka dots on bedroom wall

Polka dots galore

And don’t tell anyone but I cheated and bought a polystyrene 6 inch round to decorate for the top tier to give extra height and interest! As I was baking loads of chocolate cupcakes, flapjacks and brownies for my non fruit cake loving nieces and nephews I didn’t want to bake another round cake to ice as sponge cake can’t be iced a month in advance!

Our traditional English christening cake. 3 year old wedding fruit cake

I iced the fruit and fake cakes a month in advance to give it a chance to dry and set. Making the cakes more durable and easy to transport. I iced them directly onto half inch thick drum cake boards for extra height with a layer of marzipan and fondant.

To hide any rough edges I pinned white ribbon into the drum boards around the edge of the cake. And found some beautiful grey polka dot ribbon that my friend gave me which worked perfectly to make a decorative bow on the top tier. As the cakes were on their drum boards I used dress making pins rubbed with brandy to pin the ribbon directly into the board without fear of the pins rusting.

Once the cakes were iced, buffed and smoothed (method here) I dabbed the small fondant polka dots (cut out with the round end of a fine piping nozzle) with a spot of brandy to help it adhere to the fondant.

I stored the cakes in cardboard cake boxes to protect them and help them dry and then all I had to do was make the bunting cake topper using some glitter sticker letters and paint my cardboard letters. So you definitely know our little one’s name!

I was so impressed with the cake. It actually tastes better than I remember. The orange brandy really popped and had intensified throughout the cake which was moist and rich. Fruit cake definitely gets better as it ages. The more mature the better. I’m so pleased I saved the cake. Not only did it save me from having to bake one whilst clutching a small baby but I managed to slice it into half inch fingers and feed our 50 family members and keep a couple of pieces for me to enjoy and savour later on!

Traditional, tasty and time saving. What’s not to love?

Liked this post? You can read about our epic wedding cake adventure here…

Part 1 – My 5 tiers of fruit wedding cake – My biggest booziest cake yet

Part 2 – How many sugar flowers does it take to make a wedding cake?

Part 3 – Where to start icing a 5 tier wedding cake?

Part 4 -The Final Frontier – Decorating & assembling my 5 Tier wedding cake

55. Giant Punschrulle – Swedish Green Marizpan Rolls

Posted by aroundtheworldin80bakes in Around the World in Eighty Bakes, Baking, Birthday, cake, cake decoration, Cookery, Everday Cooking, Food, marzipan, pastry, princeproductions, recipe, Scandinavian Food, sugar craft, traditional food, Travelling and tagged with baking, birthday cakes, biscuits, cakes, Chocolate, chocolate cake, dammsugare, digestive biscuits, digestives, economical baking, economical cooking, Food, giant prunschrulle, Giant Pruschenelle Cake, giant punschrulle cake, how to use up leftover cakes, ikea, leftover cookies, leftover cupcakes, marzipan, prunschrulle, punsch rolls, Punschrulle, recipe, rolls, scandi cusine, Scandinavian, sweden, swedish, vacuum cleaner cakes, what can i use leftover cakes for? 10/09/2013

too long for a normal plate - the giant prunschelle

too long for a normal plate – the giant punschelle

The Prince family love marzipan. In every shape, form and colour. There is a a rather well known Swedish shop that sells these amazing little green marzipan rolls called Punschrulle and everytime I go I stock up, mainly on food ignoring all the other homeware options.

A slice of giant Punschrulle cake

I have been looking for a recipe for Punschrulle or Punsch-rolls forever and was unable to find one that reflected the ingredients described on the back of the packet. The key ingredient was always missing, oats! So in the end I made up my own recipe and tasted it along the way to make sure I had got it as close to the original as possible.

A birds eye view of a giant Punschrulle cake

The Punschrulle is also known as dammsugare which in English means rather oddly, “vacuum cleaner”. I think this is related to it’s tube like appearance, like a vacuum cleaner’s hose perhaps? But also because this cake gives you the opportunity to use up leftover cakes and cookies, hoovering up the crumbs from yesterday’s baking. What an efficient little cake this is.

6 Earl Grey Cupcakes just begging to be mashed up

6 Earl Grey Cupcakes just begging to be beaten up

I was lucky to have 6 earl grey cupcakes waiting patiently to be eaten in my freezer from a rather large baking frenzy I had whipped myself into. now was there time to shine. I defrosted the 6 cupcakes and blended them in my kitchenaid (using the beater attachment) to a fine crumb. You could also use a hand blender or food processor if you wish. I simply couldn’t be bothered to unpack my food processor so used the kitchen aid, which does a pretty good job of beating things to a fine crumb, particularly if you break it up a little by hand first.

cake crumbs

Chocolate and marzipan are my favourite combination. I could merrily eat a block dipped in dark chocolate all to myself, but tried to resist as far as possible. Punschrulle rolls are filled with a rich chocolatey, oaty cake. Further investigation also indicates that they are a rather boozy cake too, with punsch liquor. However I wanted to make a child friendly recipe, not get my little nephew hammered, so I omitted the booze from my recipe. But feel free to whack a bit in if you prefer your cakes alcoholic. I’m not entirely sure where you purchase punsch liquor from in the UK, but I think brandy , vodka or rum would be a good substitute!

The classic storecupboard essential- digestive biscuits

Sieving cocoa powder and sugar into the mix I realsied that I needed something more to bulk the cake crumbs up and balance out the cocoa powder. Rooting around in my cupboards I found some digestive biscuits which were perfect for this purpose. Again I crumbled them into the mixer bowl by hand and let the mixer do the work for me.

Chuck in the rest of the cocoa powder and sugar

I was worried that the oats would be a bit too large in this mixture so introduced my hand (stick blender) to blitz the mixture to a much finer crumb. As this cake is uncooked, the oats needed a little time to soften in the mixture, you want texture to the cake, but not to make your friends feel like they have oats stuck in their throat.

Beat in the butter

It’s such a simple cake to make, having completed the baking when I made the cupcakes a few months ago. All that’s left to do is to rub in the butter and shape the mixture into a roll! I wanted to make my punschrulle for my sisters birthday and envisaged a giant punschrulle roll, rather than making individual rolls.

Beat the mixture together until it sticks in one nice lump

Beat the mixture together until it sticks in one nice chocolatey lump

I used cling film to roll the mixture up and flatten at the ends, whilst smoothing the top.

Plonk your buttery cake crumb lump onto some clingfilm and roll

Sealing the ends of the cling film, the roll can then be transferred easily to the fridge to set, while you get busy colouring the marzipan and rolling it out.

a cling film wrapped chocolate sausage

Traditionally Punschrulle rolls are bright green and each end is dipped in dark chocolate. I used a little green gel food colouring and kneaded it thoroughly into the marzipan. dousing the worksurface in icing sugar stops the marzipan sticking and means you can roll it out into a thin rectangle, just enough to cover the entire cake.

Turn your marzipan green and roll out

Making sure the marzipan was loose enough to remove it from the worksurface, (The last thing you want is to realise half way through icing you cake is that the marzipan is welded on to the worksurface.)

Chocolate Sausage ready to be wrapped in marzipan

I plonked the roll face down (the smooth side which is to be the top of the cake) face down on to the marzipan and folded the marzipan over to envelope the cake fully. Strategically folding the marzipan to hide the join underneath the cake and tuck the folds along the edges underneath.

Wrap up and tuck in the edges

Whilst the bottom of the cake is facing upwards, I melted a bar of dark chocolate in the microwave, reserving one third of the chocolate and stirring every 30 seconds to avoid it burning. Once the chocolate is melted pour in the final third of the chocolate and stir until fully melted. This helps to reduce the temperature of the chocolate and temper it, so it retains a glossy finish and doesn’t look like a sweaty mess when you’re finished.

One chocolate cake sausage encased in marzipan

I smeared melted chocolate all over the bottom of the cake in a thin layer and allowed it to set. This means each slice has a layer of chocolate, not just the lucky people who get the end pieces! It also helps to lift the cake when you need to move it later on…

Smear melted chocolate all over the bottom of the roll

Once the bottom layer of chocolate has set fully, turn the cake face up and paint the ends of the cake with a thick layer of chocolate. Et voila, you have created a giant Punschrulle cake!

Paint each end with melted chocolate

Now this is when I realised that you have to be a member of my family to think this cake looks pretty. On a giant scale, the Punschrulle looks a bit odd… but it tastes great! (Even if I do say so myself.) I don’t own a plate or chopping board long enough to house such an enormous cake, so I had to resort to using a colourful serving tray.

too long for a normal plate – the giant Punschrulle

The addition of a giant candleabra birthday candle gave the cake somewhat of an eccentric finish. What Giant Punschrulle cake would be complete without a birthday candleabra? This cake didn’t last long in our house. Despite it’s chocolatey richness, it’s very moreish and disappears very quickly when served with a hot cup of tea. I could easily eat 2 slices in one sitting. The crunch of the dark chocolate is there with every bite, balancing out the marzipan and dense oaty filling. It’s a great way to use up any leftover cakes and biscuits in your house, so it’s a rather economical and unusual birthday cake. If you want to see how the individual Punschrulle rolls should look, have a pop over to www.nearof.com for a review of the cakes I based my recipe on.

What giant prunschelle cake would be complete without a birthday candleabra?

Happy Birthday to my wonderful sister! Here’s a interesting interpretation of the Punschrulle cake just for you!

Giant Punschrulle Cake

Things that I used to make my Giant Punschrulle Cake

6 cupcakes (you could use whatever cake crumbs you have available, chocolate or vannila would probably work best)
10 digestive biscuits (plain biscuits again work well in this cake, rich teas, shortbread or digestives would be good)
Sugar
Butter
Vanilla

Icing

300g marzipan
green food colouring
icing sugar (for dusting the board)

Chocolate

100g dark chocolate

Buttercup Babycakes

Posted by aroundtheworldin80bakes in Around the World in Eighty Bakes, Baking, Birthday, cake, cake decoration, Cookery, dessert, Food, Lauren Prince, recipe, sugar craft, traditional food, Vintage and tagged with apricot jam, baby bundt cake, baby cakes, baby shower, baby windsor, birth cake, bundt cake, buttercups, cake decorating, celebration cake, chocolate truffle cake, christening cake, culinary lavender, edible cake decoration, fondant icing, heir to the throne, kate middleton, lavender, lavender shortbread, madeira, marzipan, pearls, pizza cutter, prince william, renshaws, royal baby, royal baby cake competition, royals, sponge, sugar flowers, traditional cake decoration, vintage 01/07/2013

Buttercup Babycakes

It’s no secret I’m not the best sugar crafter or cake decorator. I’m still finding my feet when it comes to making pretty cakes. I’m more at home pouring loads of ganache over a cake and hoping for the best. So why on earth did I decide to attempt to cover a bundt cake with fondant icing you may wonder?! I’m always up for a challenge and this really was a test of my cake decorating abilities.

A recent cake experiment - I won the Church Chocolate Cake Competition (for taste, not presentation!)

A recent cake experiment My Giant Chocolate Truffle Cake – I won the Church Chocolate Cake Competition (for taste, not presentation!)

I was invited to participate in Renshaws Baking Competition. The challenge? To bake and decorate a cake fit for the next heir to the throne, to welcome Baby Windsor into the world. My initial idea was to make a 3D crown, hence the bundt cake. however it seems my imagination is far more advanced than my sugarcrafting skills.

Lavender Bundt Baking

What flavour cake do you bake for the royals? Well, I know Kate enjoyed a few Lavender shortbreads during her pregnancy, so a Lavender Madeira Bundt Cake I baked. Hoping that she hasn’t since developed an aversion to lavender. Not that Kate’s ever going to actually eat this cake, but you know it’s the thought that counts.

Roll roll roll your fondant gently off the table

One of the reasons I don’t venture into sugarcraft very often is that there isn’t a lot of space in my kitchen. Attempting to roll my crown out meant there was a bit of droppage on the floor. I rolled the fondant as thin as I could manage in one rectangular piece.

Pizza cutter at the ready – crown creating

I don’t own any proper sugar crafting knives so wielding the pizza cutter I attempted to fashion some crown shapes. Cutting triangles out of the fondant.

Hoping the crown sets safely with a tin foil support

Hoping the sugar crown sets safely with a tin foil support

Once I had my basic crown shape I gently lifted it onto a cling film covered bundt tin. and held the pointy ends in place with a crumpled horseshoes of tin foil. Unfortunately the bundt tin then needed to have a cake baked into it, so it all went to hell. The crown ended up as a crumpled mess, so I made another. This crown snapped after it dried. Admitting defeat I returned to the drawing board.

jam up the bundt

To help spur on my creativity I decided to apply a layer of marzipan to the lavender bundt. Applying a liberal coating of apricot jam to make it all stick.

A lovely layer of marzipan

Bundts are not usually iced in this way and I can now see why. Pouring a whole lot of chocolate over a bundt is a much easier option. This traditional style of icing is best suited to a more circular cake with flat edges, like with my wedding cake. Anyway who said I had to be traditional! Undeterred I threw a thin layer of marizpan over the bundt and poked a hole in the marzipan, coaxing it into the inner ring and under the moulded edges of the cake.

Marzipaned bundt

Surprisingly the marzipan worked exceedingly well. I filled in a few gaps with some extra bits of marzipan as no one will know about the messy joins. If you won’t tell I won’t either. AND only a small bit of the extra marzipan fell into my mouth whilst rolling this out, honest. (Did I mention that I have a marzipan obsession?? It is manna from the heavens!)

Smooth fondant finish

The most tricky bit is trying to get a thin layer of smooth white fondant icing to cover the bundt. The Renshaw white fondant is really lovely to work with, so soft and smooth, but I had to add a lot of icing sugar to stop it sticking to the worksurface so I could lift it all up in one go over the rolling pin. I didn’t have the courage to pop a hole in the middle of the white icing once I eventually got it on to the cake. I couldn’t have faced more rolling after it took me a good few goes to get it the right size to fit the cake. It took a bit of manoeuvring in my little kitchen to get it to work but once in place it worked a treat! Using the palm of my hand I smoothed the fondant and buffed it to a nice sheen so a hint of the moulding of the bundt can be seen through the icing.

Terrible crown attempt number 2.

In a bid to create a royal crown for my baby cake I cracked open a pack of yellow fondant. I clearly had to give up on my crown idea, as this looked more like a wonky chimney. A new approach was needed.

I give up on the crowns let’s make flowers instead!

And that approach is always flowers! I have a few sugar craft tools in my kitchen, most of which tend to be flowers or stars. The yellow sugar paste was really easy to handle. As it was so soft it didn’t really require any kneading to make it more pliable. It was good to go straight from the packet. As we don’t know if the baby is a girl or a boy (yet) I chose the gender neutral buttercup yellow.

whack a load of flowers all over the bundt

I whacked a whole load of yellow buttercups randomly all over the bundt straight from the cutter. As the white fondant and the yellow sugar paste were still moist no edible glue was needed to hold the flowers in place. You could add some for extra security if you like, but the fondants bonded instantly and let me crack on with cutting as many flowers as possible.

Just when you’re think you’re done… keep going

Just when I started to think I was almost finished, I kept on cutting flowers and piling them up in the centre of the bundt to create a bouquet of buttercups fit for the Duchess.

Spray liberally with sparkle and stud each daisy with a pearl

I realised that my bundt was starting to resemble a 1970s swimming cap. I was going for a vintage look but no one wants to eat a swimming cap, especially not Kate Middleton and Wills. The flowers required a lift. Spray on silver lustre is always my go to when cakes need a little something extra. It’s my pièce de résistance. And yet it still wasn’t enough. Back to my cupboard and I discovered a pot of edible pink pearls. Terrific! I studded the still supple yellow fondant flowers with a pearl in the centre. This (in my opinion) makes all the difference.

Birds eye bundt view – Welcome to the World Baby Windsor

Pushing the pearls carefully into the centre of each flower added variance to the flowers, giving a more natural look and lifting the petals slightly from the cake. The added pressure also encouraged the bond between the fondants to help hold the flowers on to the cake.

I love a bit of lavender in my baking, you can probably tell from all of the other cakes I’ve made. Lavender keeps coming back. Infusing caster sugar with lavender is so easy to do and gives you a naturally wonderful flavour that enhances any cake, shortbread, meringue, Madeleine or cupcake that takes your fancy. It’s subtle floral scent perfumes the house and soothes the soul (and tummy). A nice hunk of lavender Madeira cake is best served with a strong cup of proper tea. The marzipan and fondant gives you an extra flavour dimension and sweetness. That sugar boost a new mammy needs. Welcome to the World Baby Windsor.

Build me up Buttercup – Baby Bundt Cake

Things that I used to make this Baby Bundt Cake

115g Self Raising Flour
115g Plain Flour
175g Margarine
175g Lavender infused sugar
3 eggs
splash of milk
500g Renshaw white fondant icing
500g Natural Marzipan
40g yellow sugar paste

Beat sugar and butter together until light and fluffy
Beat eggs in, one at a time until fully incorporated
Fold in the flours
Fold in enough milk to get a good dropping consitency
Pour into a bundt tin and smooth down, filling all of the gaps
Bake for 50 minutes at 170 degrees C
Cool
Coat with apricot jam
Apply a layer of marzipan
Apply a layer of fondant icing
Apply flowers, lustre and pearls!
Present to your new parent friends.

Buttercup Bouquet

Thank you to Renshaw for sending me this lovely box of icing and marzipan. I loved getting creative with the icing and it’s really easy to work with. I shall have to practice my cake decorating skills more often! Now who needs a celebration cake??

My box of Renshaw Icing Goodies

If you’d like to see the other entries in the Royal baby cake competiton head on over to www.renshawbaking.com

The Final Frontier – Decorating and Assembling my 5 Tier Wedding Cake

Posted by aroundtheworldin80bakes in @laurenprince, Around the World in Eighty Bakes, Baking, cake, cake decoration, Fruit Cake, sugar craft, Vintage, wedding and tagged with 5 tier wedding cake, around the world in 80 bakes, baking, cake, fruit cake, homemade, how to bake a wedding cake, how to decorate a wedding cake, how to ice a wedding cake, jesmond dene house, wedding cake, wedding favours, winter wedding 16/05/2013

The decorated wedding cake in my kitchen

When I engaged in creating hundreds of Hydrangea blossoms to adorn the wedding cake with I didn’t really stop to think too hard about how I was going to get them on the cake… It can’t be that hard right? I purchased a pot of edible glue (amongst many other things from the lovely cake shop) and trotted off to carry on baking, pushing all thoughts to the back of mind about how edible glue works.

Some of the cakes resting nicely in my kitchen cupboards

Fast forward 3 months to December 2012 and I have now 5 iced wedding cakes resting nicely in their cardboard cake boxes, up on some book shelves in our spare room/wedding dumping ground. I have 1 extra iced cake just in case of any disasters and 2 naked fruit cakes leftover from the epic baking stage of this cake.

We were going to celebrate Christmas early this year, what with the wedding being on 30th December. So I started wrapping all of my presents very early. I was wrapping until 11 one night and popped everything under the tree only to look up and discover yellow stuff running down the walls, behind the tree. I showed Chris and he discovered that I had also placed all of my freshly wrapped presents into a quickly mounting pool of water gathering under the tree.

The wall was quickly turning into a water feature in our house. It also joins onto the spare room. A spot of investigating further revealed that the flood had started in the spare room, saturated the wall and then seeped into the living room and across the floor! Thank god my dress was at my parents house and thank god for Kate’s cake boxes! They were the perfect protection against any damp that was lingering in the air (there was a lot!). Luckily the shelves weren’t up against the soaked wall too and lucky that I had been wrapping presents to discover the leak as I wouldn’t have noticed it until we were swimming in our sitting room.

We’re all having a dehumidifier party

One emergency cake evacuation later and removal of everything out of my kitchen cupboards, the 8 cakes had a new dry home! Our landlord delivered a dehumidifier to get rid of the damp and the stink and we were good to go. Although further calamities were awaiting me whilst Chris was away for his stag do and I had friends round for festive fizz, mulled cider and spare wedding cake tasters. The dehumidifier started to leak! I then flooded the toilet trying to mop it up and broke a handle off the door just before everyone arrived. I think it was best to get all the bad luck out of the way before the wedding.

Sticking a milliong sugar flowers in place

Sticking millions of sugar flowers in place

To give myself plenty of time to glue the flowers on to the cakes I set aside a Saturday the week before Christmas to give them a chance to dry fully and me to repair any breakages/falling offs. This happened to coincide with the painter coming to repair our flooded flat. It made for an interesting 5 hours of glueing flowers whilst directing decorators to dust pans, brushes and keeping the cat at bay.

Edible glue takes a ridiculously long time to dry! In hindsight I think royal icing would have been a MUCH better idea… I used a cocktail stick to smear a little spot of glue onto the back of each flower (which had become really rigid and quite fragile so had to be handled extremely carefully). The moulded reverse of each flower results in grooves and ridges that the glue disappears into. It needs a bit more glue so that the it can actually touch the cake.

The glue should be tacky before attempting to apply it to the cake… If you try to stick it on while the glue is still runny you will have a happy game of chase the flowers as they fall off the cake leaving a trail of glue which has now taken on some of the blue food colouring all down the cake. Many of the flowers fell on the floor and smashed this way but I also realised that I have quick reflexes, almost a cake decorating ninja.

The painters were highly amused by my antics in the kitchen where I didn’t even stop for a cup of tea for 5 hours whilst contorting myself into all shapes to catch the falling flowers and hold 4 flowers in place with each hand until the glue dried enough to support their weight. Patience and flexibility were useful qualities to have a this stage in the cake decorating process. It’s a good job I do yoga.

Almost there but not quite yet… have a look at the varied blue hues in the hydrangea

Zoe Clark’s original design for this cake uses buttercream icing to cover all of the cakes. The sugar flowers can then simply just sit on the buttercream and be held in place. No glue required. The fondant icing that I used, had now hardened and had no give to it to help hold on to the flowers, so it really was the glue doing all of the hard work.

I realised after about an hour of catching and reapplying flowers that I needed to paint the flowers with glue, leave them for about 5 minutes and then the glue would be just about right to stick it onto the cake. Some flowers also had to be rejected as when they dried they hardened into such a curly shape that they lacked a flat area on the back where I could paint the glue on.

I wanted the flowers to appear as natural as possible cascading down the cake. I chose a combination of hues of the blue hydrangea blooms and applied them randomly at different angles to the cake to give a more varied finish. Tapering off towards the bottom of the cake.

The decorated wedding cake in my kitchen

With most of the flowers stuck into place, reserving a gap down the back of the cake, so I had some space to pick each cake up and stack it back together later on. I retired for an essential lie down.

A couple of hours later the glue was really dry and the flowers were stable enough so the cakes could be returned to their boxes and shelf for safe keeping.

One Tier - complete with a full round of dowls - how to ice a wedding cake

Back in it’s box. One Boxed Tier – note the gap down the back – no flowers here yet so it can be handled without damaging the decoration.

I arranged to deposit and arrange the cake at Jesmond Dene House the day before the wedding. It was an exciting and cautious trip in the car trying to keep all the flowers on the cake and intact.

I hired a cake stand to add extra height to the cake and whipped up a batch of royal icing to glue the cakes together and popped it in a icing bag so pipe it easily into place in situ.

All together now in Jesmond Dene House. The day before the big day! (please excuse the lack of make up and scraped back hair it was a busy day! But the cake is almost as tall as me!)

Each tier of the cake required a generous dose of royal icing to hold it in place but not too much so it oozes out the sides. When royal icing dries it’s rock solid. That cakes wasn’t going to be moving anywhere!

With all 5 tiers stacked and arranged with the floral cascade running down the front and the joins in the ribbons running down the back I could then add more flowers to fill in the gap that I left to pick the cake up down the back. Amazingly only 2 flowers fell off in the process! Royal icing was a perfect glue and each flower didn’t need to be held in place for hours!

The final result was everything that I had hoped for. The 5 tiers of fruit cake ontop of the cake stand made it almost as tall as me! Please excuse the lack of make up and scraped back hair.

Birds eye view of the cake in place in the great hall at Jesmond Dene House

I have no idea how the wonderful staff at Jesmond Dene House managed to manoeuvre the gargantuian cake upstairs. The 12 inch tier by itself was just about all I could carry!

The Final Result! The Wedding Cake

When we arrived at JDH after the ceremony it was amazing to see everything all together. I loved it. The flowers, the cake, the vintage glass, the real fire, and the sweets and treats I’d made. It was a dream come true with all of my most favourite people in the world together in one room! It was the most perfect day.

Cutting the cake!

And then we got to cut the cake and the dancing began. I didn’t sit down all night but I managed to squeeze in a sneaky slice of wedding cake and it was truly my best ever cake. Rich, extremely fruity and moist, with not too much of an alcoholic burn. The 3 months of maturing were a really good idea! I love the amaretto and cherries. I will definitely be using this recipe again in the future.

What an adventure. This is without doubt my most epic bake yet. Exciting and exhausting in equal measures. I daresn’t even think how much time and energy I spent on the whole cake process, in fact I’m not even going to consider it (or how much I spent on eveything along the way) as it would detract from the very happy memories. I’m so proud that I could make my own wedding cake. Who would have thought a year ago when I hadn’t even made pastry before that I’d be baking and icing a 5 tier wedding cake? I’m very grateful for the help I’ve had along the way too. It was all the more special that I made it myself and that I could share with all of our family and friends. I even posted some to my Aunty Carol in Canada. Cutting the wedding cake is supposed to bring good luck to the marriage. I wonder if making it yourself gives you extra kudos in the luck stakes?

I’ve saved one naked cake for a special occasion and I still have enough cake left for one last slice. I’m saving that one for a rainy day. I’ll even get the wedding photos back out and relive it all just one more time…

My Bouquet

Me and my dad arriving at church

The big moment

Gratuitus confetti shot – arriving at Jesmond Dene House

Leaving church

Mr and Mrs Hoy

The table favours petite Italian Lavender Merinuges in vintage glass wear with nostalgic photos for our guests

All our friends and family in one room. Jesmond Dene House in full swing

Look what my lovely dad made! Post Box

Mr and Mrs Hoy – the first dance

Cutting the cake!

This is part 4 of the 4 stages of wedding cake baking! You can read more about my epic wedding cake adventures here…

Part 1 – My 5 tiers of fruit wedding cake – My biggest booziest cake yet

Part 2 – How many sugar flowers does it take to make a wedding cake?

Part 3 – Where to start icing a 5 tier wedding cake?

Part 4 -The Final Frontier – Decorating & assembling my 5 Tier wedding cake

Where to start when icing a 5 Tier Wedding Cake?

Posted by aroundtheworldin80bakes in @laurenprince, Around the World in Eighty Bakes, Baking, cake, cake decoration, Cookery, sugar craft, Vintage, wedding and tagged with 5 tier fruit cake, 5 tier wedding cake, baking, cake decorating, cake poppins, doweling a cake, fondant icing, Food, fruit cake, home made, jesmond dene house, sugar flowers, sugarcraft, wedding cake, zoe clark cakes 07/05/2013

Me and my pride an joy - The 5 Tier iced wedding cake with ribbon in Kate's wonderful kitchen

Me and my pride and joy – The 5 Tier iced wedding cake with ribbon in Kate’s wonderful kitchen

If you’ve ever visited my tiny flat you will quickly realise that there is very little room to turn around never mind ice, stack and store 5 tiers of fruit cake. Thankfully I have a wonderful friend called Cake Poppins who kindly offered to spend the day with me in her amazing kitchen complete with all of her expertise and wonderful non stick cake decorating equipment. I cannot thank Kate enough for her help and guidance. If you haven’t checked out Kate’s blog I thoroughly recommend it !

Cath Kidston Jamaican Black Cake – one of my previous attempts at cake icing

Never before have I attempted any sort of technical cake assemblage that requires dowling. I have attempted rather slap dash icing of cakes with layers of marzipan and fondant icing. My results have been passable, but on my wedding cake passable would not suffice. It needed to be perfect. No pressure there then.

One of the 5 Tiers of Fruit Cake

Before the cakes could even go near any icing a great deal of planning and shopping was required. I packed up a car full of cake and sugar based goods and headed round to Kate’s. The fumes eminating from the cakes made for a very happy journey.

To start with you need to purchase drum style cake boards (the ones that are half an inch thick to add extra height to the cakes). Each board needs to be exactly the same size as the cake. I purchased a 4, 6, 8 10, and 12 inch round boards. The 4 inch was pretty difficult to find but you can definitely buy them online.

I have absolutely no idea how much marzipan and fondant icing we went through and so engrossed was I in mastering the kneading, rolling and enveloping the cakes in icing I forgot to take any photos along the way. (sorry!) My guess is that about 6 packets of marzipan disappeared in the process, which would be around 6 x 500g = 3 kg of marzipan. As a rough guess the same amount of fondant ivory icing was used to cover the 5 cakes.

A slosh of vodka was required (not for me) but to sterilise the cake boards.

3 jars of apricot jam were used to coat the cakes and the boards prior to the application of the marzipan. This helps to stick the marzipan to the cake and the cake to the board.

There was a lot of tea, cake and rolling going on that Sunday afternoon. Gaps in the cake need to be filled with marzipan, a bit like smoothing putty into cracks in a wall before you paint it. You can even add a sausage of marzipan around the edge of the cake to fit it neatly to the board, if there’s a gap. I learnt so many brillliant tips.

Kate introduced me to cake spacers. A truly wonderful invention. They consist of 2 equally thick pieces of wood (rather ruler shaped) which you place on either side of your marzipan or fondant. You then place the rolling pin onto the rulers and roll away from you (preferably on a non stick board). Turning the fondant at regular intervals so it doesn’t stick. This means you get evenly flattened fondant, giving a smooth and much less holey finish than I often achieve. You have to press with all your weight rolling from your hands all the way up to your elbows evenly. If like me your a rolling novice you then get equally spaced bruises up your arms too. Kate’s an absolute pro!

Once the marzipan layer is on the cake, it’s best to get the layer of fondant on whilst it’s still tacky so it all sticks together. The less you touch the final fondant layer the better finish you get. Only touch the fondant covered cake with the backs of your hands to avoid leaving any fingers prints please. Smoothing the edges down with a plastic cake smoother, pushing the excess fondant down and squeezing it out in to the bottom of the skirt of the cake. Which can then be trimmed away with a lovely sharp palette knife, being careful not to cut into the cake (!)

Once all 5 cakes have a double coat of icing you carefully wrap a thin ribbon around the bottom of each cake. Double sided sticky tape is useful to stick the ribbon together. This gives a really professional looking image. I chose ivory ribbon to blend into the fondant and give a really sleek finish.

The Iced Wedding Cake – you can see the ribbon edging neating up each cake tier

Icing the 5 cakes took around about 5 hours. Then Kate showed me how to make sure the cakes are level, how to cut the dowels to size, where to insert dowels (plastic rods) to hold the weight of the cake above and how to stack the 5 tiers together.

Using a spirit level, a hack saw, a dowling guide template and a marker pen we forced the plastic dowels strategically into all 4 iced cakes, all in the right places so you can’t see any plastic dowels on the finished cake! The top tier didn’t need any dowels to as there was no other cake to support above it.

One Boxed Tier – complete with a full round of dowls – ignore the flowers these were added later on…

The final result was very impressive! Seeing all 5 tiers stacked up in their smooth white finish was worth all of the effort! Then all we had to do was carefully take it apart again, box the cake and manouvere it all back into my car. Then the task of finding a suitable storaged place in my tiny flat to rest the cakes whilst the fondant set.

Almost there but not quite yet…

There was still a month to spare before the wedding and I still had to glue all of the hydrangea flowers to the cake, box it back up again, transport it to Jesmond Dene House AND stack the entire cake, glueing each tier together. And then to eat it! So close and yet still so far to go…

This is part 3 of the 4 stages of wedding cake baking! You can read more about my epic wedding cake adventures here…

Part 1 – My 5 tiers of fruit wedding cake – My biggest booziest cake yet

Part 2 – How many sugar flowers does it take to make a wedding cake?

Part 3 – Where to start icing a 5 tier wedding cake?

Part 4 -The Final Frontier – Decorating & assembling my 5 Tier wedding cake

5 Tiers of Fruit Wedding Cake – My biggest booziest cake ever

Posted by aroundtheworldin80bakes in @laurenprince, Around the World in Eighty Bakes, Baking, cake, cake decoration, Christmas, Food, Fruit Cake, Lauren Prince, sugar craft, Vintage, wedding and tagged with 5 tiers fruit cake, alcoholic cakes, amareto, around the world in 80 bakes, boozy fruit cake, cherry, coconut, homemade wedding cake. recipe, icing wedding cake, malibu, tropical, wedding cake, wedding cake for 120 people, what to do with a broken oven, what to do with burnt wedding cake, white rum 07/04/2013

Five Tiers of Fruit Cake on our wedding day

After Chris and I got engaged my first thoughts turned not to the arranging the wedding, or buying my dress, but to the wedding cake. I got my priorities right. My theory is sort out the cake first and everything else will fall in to place. I actually bought the first wedding dress I tried on and my nephew who wasn’t quite 1 years old helped me choose it but that’s a completely different story. Let’s concentrate on the cake. We knew we wanted to get married as soon as possible, so the vast majority of the 6 months of our planning and preparation time I spent creating our wedding cake.

Fruit cake is very popular in my family as you can tell by my previous Caribbean Christmas Cakes and Jamaican Black Cake so I knew I needed to make something extra special, something a bit more challenging and flavour packed to feed about 120 of our family and friends. A few sleepless nights later of conjuring up flavour combinations in my head I had it planned. 5 tiers of fruit cake, each with it’s own booze and fruit combination.

12 inches worth of dried fruit soaking in their temporary storage box home

I quickly realised that I needed much BIGGER kitchen equipment than I owned to create the largest 12″ tier. No bowl was big enough to house the enormous quantity of dried fruit to soak it in the flavoursome booze. A quick hunt round the house and I discovered a hard plastic storage box which I disinfected and decanted all the ingredients into. I like to soak my fruit for as long as possible, in a bit more booze than is recommended so then I don’t really need to feed the cooked cake on a regular basis. It matures nicely wrapped up in greaseproof paper and stays moist. I pour enough booze onto the fruit to give it a pungent glistening alcoholic coat, but not so much that it’s swimming in a pool of booze. If you stir it regularly you can make sure the fruit is absorbing the booze. There should be no liquid left after 2 weeks.

Soaking 3 tiers of boozy fruit

Weighing out the fruit and measuring in the booze can be quite complicated as I found out, especially if you don’t mark on your pot which size cake the fruit is eventually intended for. Note to self: You really won’t remember which fruit is which after 2 weeks of soaking in booze so don’t even pretend that you will. Your memory is good but it’s really not that good. Squashing an 8″ cake’s worth of fruit into a 6″ cake will not work and you won’t realise that this is the problem, even when you can’t fit it all into the cake tin and have to make extra cupcakes with the rest of the mixture. The cake will be extra moist and you will think it’s not cooked so you have to bake it for an extra 3 hours to convince yourself it’s definitely cooked. To compensate for the extra oven time you will then pour way too much booze on the hot cake when it comes out of the oven and drown it. You will never be happy with this cake so you will then have to start again. From scratch. (You will also have to make another 8″ cake as you decided to bake the two cakes simultaneously and made a right pigs ear of the whole thing. That was a really good Saturday well spent.)

One incinerated wedding cake – let’s eat the middle with a spoon

For my 5 tier wedding cake I ended up baking 8 actual cakes! Mainly due to my own stupidity and also because the oven broke. The 2 cakes which required an extra 3 hours of baking (when added onto their original 4 hours of baking is a lot of time in an oven!) made me realise that the oven wasn’t playing nicely. I invested in an oven thermometer to check the temperature throughout the wedding cake baking process and followed this precisely. Only to then incinerate one cake completely. It was a charcoal cake. Although once I chipped away the outer charcoal casing the centre of the cake was really rather nice. I was determined not to let the amaretto soaked cherries to go to waste. So I chopped up the inside of the cake and served it with ice cream. It was delicious!

The quick ice day late spare cake

The other ‘ruined’ cakes did not go to waste either. I decided to donate one of my reject cakes to the church bake sale and quickly iced it. However upon arrival we discovered we were a day late for the bake sale… Ah the brain fog of wedding preparations! So I shared it with friends instead when they came round for festive drinks. I must admit the extra booze and fruit in the cake made it tricky to cut but it was so tasty!! The final uniced extra boozy tier is still maturing nicely in the cupboard. I’m going to save that one for a special occasion. I’m sure it’s good to keep for at least a year or two.

I despaired slightly as I still had 3 cakes left to bake with a broken oven. Then I did a bit of googling and decided instead to dismantle the oven, clean it and put it back together. Thankfully this seemed to do the trick! I also watched the other cakes like a hawk and turned them every hour to avoid any charring from the hot spots in the oven. The result? The final 3 tiers were the best cakes I’ve ever baked in my life. I’m sure that extra care and attention was the secret to their success. They were so level they didn’t need to be propped up when icing them to get an even top.

Creaming the butter and the eggs - wedding fruit cake

Creaming the butter, sugar and orange and lemon zests

The method for each sized cake is exactly the same and after baking 8 of them I was starting to know it off by heart. I think this Christmas I may make chocolate cakes! After soaking the fruit in booze for at least 24 hours (if not 2 weeks) you cream the butter, sugar and fruit zests together until light and fluffy.

Whisk in the eggs to the butter and sugar

Then to add the eggs, whisking them into the butter and sugar mix one at a time. I had to use the biggest bowl I own for this job as the eggs inflate like mad when whisked. The mixture can start to curdle or separate at this point, but it’s not the end of the world. You can whisk in a little flour to stop it separating but it’s still going to taste pretty amazing.

The whisked eggs are dangerously close to overflowing the bowl

Then to prepare the dry ingredients. A separate bowl was definitely required to sift the mountain of flour and spices together. I love a spicy cake, so I’m always quite liberal with the cinnamon and nutmeg.

Mountains of flour and spices

For the 12″ cake I didn’t have a bowl big enough to fit everything in so had to resort to stirring it all together in the plastic storage box! Who knew it was so difficult to stir things in a square box… I ended up with cake mix right up to my elbows and consequently my face and hair. But I did it!

Time to stir it all together! Wooden spoon at the ready

You have to fold the wet and dry ingredients in a third at a time until it’s all incorporated. Then finally fold in the ground almonds, chopped nuts and treacle.

Almost fully combined just the treacle and almonds left to fold in

I hired the largest cake tins from my local cake shop. At 50p a day it was much cheaper than buying massive cake tins and I don’t have to worry about storing them in our already full to capacity flat. It’s really important to double line and grease the cake tins to help prevent the cake from burning as it needs to bake for a really long time at a low (ish) temperature (150 degrees Celsius).

I always tie an extra collar of greaseproof paper around the outside of the tin and use that to prop up a greaseproof paper lid to protect the top of the cake from burning too. As it doesn’t have any raising agent in it the fruit cake won’t really rise any higher than it sits in the tin uncooked. I wanted to try to get the most even finish that I could so I carefully layered the mixture into the tin, spreading and flattening it down with a spatula. No air pockets for me thanks and the smoothest top I’ve ever achieved.

An even spread – all of the 12″ cake mixture in it’s very large tin

The largest cake obviously takes the longest time to bake. In hindsight starting a massive cake at 6pm is probably not the best plan. It takes at least an hour to combine all of the ingredients together and prepare the tins. Then it needs 6 hours in the oven. This meant I was babysitting the cake until 3am. I accidentally fell asleep and awoke with a fright with the oven timer going off, in my own personal inferno with the oven and the heating on, whilst wearing fleecy pyjamas, a dressing gown and a furry blanket with the cat sat on top of me. I forgot to turn this cake whilst it was baking, due to me being asleep and all , so the cake had a nice diagonal shadow across it, but once it had an extra feeding of booze and it was iced no one noticed. And with a cake this big, using so many ingredients there was no way I was going to start again!

The biggest 12″ fruit cake with a slight shadow… shhh no one will notice

The cake fruit and booze combinations I created were…

4″ Cake – Amaretto Tier – Almond, Amaretto and cherry
6″ Cake – Vanilla Tier – Vanilla Brandy, dates, peel and sultanas
8″ Cake – Tropical Tier – Malibu, dried pineapple, coconut, papaya and mango
10″ Cake – Traditional Tier – Brandy and mixed fruit
12″ Cake – Orange Tier – Orange Brandy sultanas, cherries, peel

Putting things into slightly frazzled perspective. This cake was bigger than my head.

Each cake had a different baking time too although all were baked at 150 degrees

4″ Cake – 2 and a half hours
6″ Cake – 3 hours
8″ Cake – 4 hours
10″ Cake – 4 and 3 quarter hours
12″ Cake – 6 hours

The 6 inch wedding cake. Quite the smooth level finish even if I do say so myself

What I used to bake my wedding cake – Ingredients

4″ Cake – Almond, Amaretto and Cherries

150g dried cherries
100g sultanas
40g candied peel
soaked in (at least) 2 tablespoons of amaretto
100g butter
100g brown sugar
zest of 1/4 of lemon
zest of 1/4 of orange
juice of 1/4 orange (add to the soaked fruit just before you combine the rest of the ingredients)
2 eggs
100g plain flour
1 tsp cinnamon (or more…)
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp mixed spice
1 tsp almond extract
10g ground almonds
10g flaked almonds
1/2 tablespoon treacle

6″ Cake – Vanilla Brandy, dates, peel and sultanas

70g glace cherries
375g sultanas
200g dried chopped dates
45g candied mixed peel
soaked in (at least) 4 tablespoons of vanilla infused brandy (pop a vanilla pod in your bottle of brandy and leave a vanilla pod in with the fruit whilst soaking in brandy)
175g butter
175g brown sugar
zest of 3/4 of lemon
zest of 3/4 of orange
juice of 1/2 orange (add to the soaked fruit just before you combine the rest of the ingredients)
3 eggs
175g plain flour
1 tsp cinnamon (or more…)
1 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp mixed spice
1 tsp vanilla extract
20g ground almonds
20g flaked almonds
1 tablespoon treacle

8″ Cake – Tropical Tier – Malibu, dried pineapple, coconut, papaya and mango

125g glace cherries
650g sultanas
320g dried tropical fruits (pineapple, papaya and mango)
100g candied mixed peel
soaked in (at least) 5 tablespoons of malibu (coconut flavour white rum)
350g butter
350g brown sugar
zest of 1 and half of lemons
zest of 1 and a half oranges
juice of 3/4 orange (add to the soaked fruit just before you combine the rest of the ingredients)
6 eggs
350g plain flour
2 tsp cinnamon (or more…)
1 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp mixed spice
35g ground almonds
35g desicated coconut
1 and 1/2 tablespoons treacle

10″ Cake – Traditional Tier – Brandy and Mixed fruit

180g glace cherries
800g sultanas
210g dried apricots
250g dried chopped dates
250g dried cherries
110g candied mixed peel
soaked in (at least) 8 tablespoons of brandy
450g butter
450g brown sugar
zest of 2 of lemons
zest of 2 of oranges
juice of 1 orange (add to the soaked fruit just before you combine the rest of the ingredients)
8 and half eggs
450g plain flour
3 tsp cinnamon (or more…)
2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp mixed spice
55g ground almonds
55g flaked almonds
2 tablespoons treacle

12″ Cake – Orange Brandy sultanas, cherries, peel

250g glace cherries
1460g sultanas
400g dried apricots
350g dried chopped dates
250g dried cherries
200g candied mixed peel
soaked in (at least) 10 tablespoons of orange brandy liqueur
660g butter
660g brown sugar
zest of 3 of lemons
zest of 3 of oranges
juice of 1 and 1/2 oranges (add to the soaked fruit just before you combine the rest of the ingredients)
12 eggs
660g plain flour
4 tsp cinnamon (or more…)
2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp mixed spice
75g ground almonds
75g flaked almonds
3 tablespoons treacle

5 teetering tiers of fruit cake. Stacked and ready to mature

Once all 8 cakes were baked I had a job trying to find places to store them. A bit of strategic thinking and double wrapping in greaseproof paper and tin foil later 8 cakes were ready to mature for a month before being iced. I’ll tell you all about that adventure later on along with our house flooding 2 weeks before the wedding and making over 100 sugar flowers…

My bakers impression of the final 5 tier wedding cake

Love from the new Mrs Lauren Hoy x

Me – more bridey than cakey

This is part 1 of the 4 stages of wedding cake baking! You can read more about my epic wedding cake adventures here…

Part 1 – My 5 tiers of fruit wedding cake – My biggest booziest cake yet

Part 2 – How many sugar flowers does it take to make a wedding cake?

Part 3 – Where to start icing a 5 tier wedding cake?

Part 4 -The Final Frontier – Decorating & assembling my 5 Tier wedding cake

Happy Mother’s Day Mam! Here’s a Cath Kidston-esque cake just for you

Posted by aroundtheworldin80bakes in Around the World in Eighty Bakes, Baking, cake decoration, Cookery, England, sugar craft and tagged with cake, cake decorating ideas, cath kidston, edible food glue, edible glitter, Food, food colouring, fruit cake, happy mothers day, icing, make your own edible food glue, royal icing, shape cutters, star cutters, star print, sticking decorations on cake 17/03/2012

: Happy Mother’s Day! Cath Kidston inspired cake

Happy Mother’s Day to my Mam! I wanted to bake something special, Cath Kidston -esque and chocolate free for my Mam and came up with this haphazard star cake. I will tell you all about the inside of the cake later on as it’s still a little secret (and we haven’t tried it yet!).

After some frantic last minute icing shopping I managed to get a layer of marzipan and royal icing on the very alcoholic cake in record breaking time. Fingers crossed it’s all set in place now as there was no time to let the icing dry before adding the decorative touches. Especially with the cake inside having taken 2 weeks of soaking and 7 hours of preparing/baking. I’m hoping it tastes good!

The various colours of icing and star shape cutters

I attempted to colour my own icing after failing to create purple with red and blue food colourings I managed to use some silver spoon blue liquid colouring to create the blue icing and I was lucky to have some pre coloured red icing left over from Christmas too, that needed to be used up.

Glitter plate

I rolled the different colours of icing out using my mini silicon rolling pin and used a variety of star cutters to cut out the shapes. Adding a liberal coating of glitter on each star to give it a bit more sparkle. I found tipping the glitter onto a plate and swishing the stars in the glitter made life a bit easier and a good generous layer of glitter to boot. Although the curious cat also got a bit glitterified too in the process.

I don’t own edible cake glue so I made my own with a bit of water and liquid glucose and used a knife to spread it on each star (sparingly) as I didn’t want the colours to bleed into the white icing and ruin the effect. The idea is to create just enough stickiness to hold the decorations on.

Stars climbing up the side of the cake

I got a bit carried away and put as many red and blue stars on to the cake as I could fit, including a few that are climbing up the side of the cake… I was envisaging a Cath Kidston fabric print and hope that it kind of conjures up that image but with more glitter 🙂

I’m off to take it to my Mam now. Let’s hope she likes it!

Star shaped and sparkly

All shapes and sizes

The Caribbean Christmas Cake Collection Continued…

Posted by aroundtheworldin80bakes in Around the World in Eighty Bakes, Baking, BBC Good Food, cake decoration, Christmas, Cookery, Delia Smith, Fruit Cake, sugar craft, The Great British Bake Off and tagged with #letsmakechristmas, 80, Around the world, around the world in eighty bakes, baking, candy cane, candy cane stripes, caribbean christmas cake, Cinnamon, Classic Christmas cake, coconut, cookery, cooking, Delia Smith, elf, Food, GBBO, poinsettia 06/12/2011

Caribbean Christmas Cake Collection

This post has been a long time in the making. About a month ago I began the Caribbean Christmas Cakes after an extreme test of my patience in greasing and lining 14 assorted mini cake tins and baking the little blighters for a couple of hours. I don’t mind this of course as I know the fruits of my labours are worth the effort and the wonderous rum, raisin, cinnamon and coconut smell that permeated the entire house let me know just how wonderful it will be.

The baked cakes

I’ve tended to my little cakes every week, topping them up with a bit more rum, until they could take no more. They still required a little house of marzipan and another week to dry out all in their specially purchased enormous Tupperware box.

Roll out a lot of marzipan... this has got to fit round 14 cakes

I decided one Saturday night, before heading out for a party to attempt to coat them all in a quick blanket of marzipan. I managed to finish 9 of them before I decided enough was enough and I would very much like to go to have a dance instead.

Firstly they needed to be glazed with apricot jam to make the marzipan stick…

Warming Apricot Jam

Then as all the cakes are very different shapes and sizes, they each needed to be fitted individually for their marzipan house. In an attempt to minimise rolling out marzipan, as it is frankly infuriating with its tendency to stick to the work surface just as you get it to the right thickness and it’s perfectly smooth so you have to start again, I squeezed as many on to one sheet as possible and trimmed it so there was very little excess to remove on the cake itself.

cutting each cake its own marzipan house

Once it was face down on the marzipan I had to simply lift the marzipan up and force it to stick to the sides of the cake, achieving a (relatively) smooth finish. I’m not too bothered about getting it perfect at this stage as the fondant should cover any major flaws…

Off with its head! (far too wonky)

Occasionally I got too frustrated with the cake being all oddly shaped and cut a lump off it. This didn’t really help matters as the cake was no straighter after being hacked into. I just made a big mess and dropped cake everywhere… but it did mean that I had a midnight snack when I got back in later on. 🙂

Then for the fondant

After a week the marzipan was settled enough to add the final icing layer. I was greeted by a fantastic whiff of almond and rum when I came back to the little cakes. The white fondant icing needed to be kneaded until it was pliable and then rolled out in the same way as the marzipan, however a bit more carefully and precisely (if I can ever be precise?!) as this is the layer that everyone sees. Cue more irritated rolling pin action.

I didn’t have any vodka to brush onto the marzipan so I used the rum in the cupboard. I’m sure that will do the same job and perhaps enhance the rumness of the cake while it’s at it?

Trim its skirt

The cakes needed a little trim to tidy the edges and I ended up rolling the cakes themselves around like a rolling pin (as they’re so small) on the worksurface to smooth them out and flatten the icing down. It’s impossible, even with my childrens sized rolling pin to roll the icing smooth on the cakes. Then they needed a quick polish with the palm of my hand to bring the icing to life.

I love the film Elf. It always makes me think of candy canes so as an homage to Elf I wanted to make Candy stripe cakes. I was very kindly donated a block of red fondant which is amazing!! (Thanks Lucy!) I rolled it out and using many handy palette knife/ruler cut strips of red icing.

Lines and lines and lines and lines

Then I glued them on to the cakes using a dab of water.

Chunky Candy Stripes

Not bad for my first attempt even if I do say so myself (and as I was completely making it up as I went along). Not content with just one design, I had ordered some daisy flower cutters from Ebay and thought I could perhaps christen them and pass them off as Poinsettia?

The daisy/poinsettia flower cutters

Poinsettia Flowers

I added some silver edible ball things (can’t remember their real name) by mixing a tiny bit of icing sugar with water to make a paste then squishing them into the cakes. There’s still 5 more cakes that require some attention and I have some holly leaf cutters and green food colouring to play with 🙂

All shapes and sizes welcome in this collection of cakes

4 hours of icing later... 9 down, 5 more to go.

I’m also entering this in Vanessa Kimbells’ fantastic Let’s Make Christmas Competition as I will be packing up these mini cakes in cellophane with lashings of ribbon and giving them to my friends and family very soon! Have a look at her blog and competition below…

http://writingacookerybook.blogspot.com/2011/10/lets-make-christmas.html

We’re painting the roses red… Sugar flowers (first attempt)

Posted by aroundtheworldin80bakes in Around the World in Eighty Bakes, Baking, cake decoration, Cookery, England, GBBO, sugar craft, The Great British Bake Off and tagged with #letsmakechristmas, @thepinkwhisk, around the world in eighty bakes, cake decoration, Christmas cakes, fondant icing, GBBO, Great British Bake Off, icing, junior bake off, roses, Ruth Clemens, sugar flowers 22/11/2011

My Christmas food coloring pastes have arrived. I’ve started icing the 14 mini Christmas cakes and I’ve been watching the Junior Great British Bake Off avidly. I’m so very impressed with the creativity and imagination that the young bakers have.

I’ve been itching to try out sugar craft but been put off slightly by the expense and equipment required.

Improvising to the hilt and having read I read Ruth Clemens sugar rose tutorial a couple of months ago I thought that I’d give sugar craft a whirl. Surely it can’t be too difficult. Can it?

Lacking any official icing tools apart from things I can find in my cupboards which includes a cocktail stick to add food colouring, a glass worktop saver, 2 plastic sandwich bags, my mini children’s rolling pin and of course a block of fondant icing.

Its quite delicate work. Not so much like play dough as I had hoped. I mainly gave up attempting to roll anything out properly and just used my hands.

Here’s the results…