Christmas Cake Decorating Ideas

This "Wedding Bells" Christmas Cake may very well be your "ordinary" Christmas Cake – you may change the colors and decorations and still have stunningly elegant cake.

 

Dragons and Daffodils Cakes Phone: 01443 671314

Recipes:

Ingredients

Whisky to soak the fruit in for 48 hours

12 oz S. R. flour

4 oz half cherries

1 teaspoon mixed spice

4 oz chopped peel

4 oz ground almonds

8 oz butter

8 oz currants

8 oz sultanas

8 oz raisons

8 oz castor sugar

4 eggs

8 tablespoons milk

Method

Soak the dried fruit in whisky for a few days. Set out four bowls. Clean and mix the fruit. In a second bowl mix the dry ingredients, namely the flour, spice and ground almonds. In the largest bowl cream the butter and sugar together, and in the fourth bowl beat together the eggs and milk. Stir in alternatively, a little at a time, the flour mixture and the egg mixture to the butter and sugar.

Lastly add the fruit gradually. Mix thoroughly. Line an 8" diameter cake tin with first brown paper, then greaseproof paper. Bake for 4 hours. First hour Gas mark 3-4, Electric 350-375 deg F, then reduces to Gas mark 1-2, Electric 275-300 deg F. Once the cake is cooked cool for half an hour and then make holes in the cake with the skewers and pour the sherry over. Wrap well in tin foil and keep for at least a month to mature.

The bells are made out of the cut out icing shapes explained in Sweet Sixteen Cake

Royal Icing

This smooth, hard-drying icing is perfect for making decorations that last. It is also useful as a "cement" to fasten decorations together.

Ingredients:

3 Tablespoons Wilton Meringue Powder

1 lb. (4 cups) confectioners' sugar (about 1lb.)

6 Tablespoons warm water

Beat all ingredients until icing forms peaks (7-10 minutes at low speed with a heavy-duty mixer, 10-12 minutes at high speed with a hand-held mixer). Recipe makes 3 cups.

Note: Keep all utensils completely grease-free for proper icing consistency.

Almond Paste

Ingredients

500g (1lb) almonds)

250g (8oz) icing sugar

250g (8oz) caster sugar

2 eggs or 4 yolks

2.5 ml (½ teaspoon) almond essence

5ml lemon Juice

Method

Mix both of the sugars and the almonds together. Beat the eggs or the egg yolks with the lemon juice and the almond essence and add to the almonds and mix to a smooth paste. Makes 2lb of almond paste sufficient to cover an eight-inch cake

Apricot glaze for a 10" cake

1 cup Apricot preserves

Heat preserves to boiling, strain. Brush on cake while still hot. Let dry. Glaze will dry to a hard finish in 15 minutes or less.

This beautiful elegant Christmas cake is not difficult even for those with very limited experience of cake decorating. The most difficult part of the operation is to get the specially shaped pans. At the time of writing I found a similar tin at bake ware. I simulated the bottom two layers by cooking the cakes in a bowl shaped like the one below. A similar bund pan can achieve the top shape.

Requirements

1 cake board x 10 inches

1 8-inch cake tine (which will be surrounded by the holly on the bottom)

Plastic holly

1 cake board x 8 inches

8-inch bottom tier rocket shaped cake

5-inch fruitcake (or dummy shape)

6-inch middle tier fruitcake

4-inch fruitcake (or dummy shape)

3-inch top individual Christmas cake shape fruitcake

24 icing bells

Royal icing

Apricot glaze

Almond paste

To assemble the cake decide whether the cakes in between the layers are going to be layers of a real cake or whether or not they will be dummies. There is a good case for using a cake tin here as a dummy. It is not a step normally to be recommended. However the color of silver is difficult to obtain with food dyes, and a new silver cake pan, provides the cake with color and balance. A cake tin can also be covered with gold or silver paper to create the same effect.

Cover the three real cakes or the five real cakes with apricot glaze and almond paste and leave overnight.Place the largest cake on the board and cover with royal icing, and then sprinkle some powdered sugar on whilst the icing is still wet, this will give the appearance of a dusting of snow. Edible dust is another alternative to make the cake sparkle. The next tier can be a real cake or a dummy.

Silver cake tin can be used to create the effect of silver. Silver is a difficult color to achieve easily with dye, the nearest available color is gray. A cake tin can be covered with gold or silver Christmas paper, or it can be a real cake and finished with gray icing.

Place the second tier on the cake and cover with royal icing and then the powdered sugar. Repeat the next layer either with the dummy cake or the real one, but use the same technique as in the first cake. Repeat with the top layer of cake.

To finish decorating the cake pipe the gold loops using scrolls or coils and make the bells and the star as explained in lesson 11 making pictures from icing The gold bells can be already made and bought if you do not have the time to make them yourself.