Here is my Christmas Cake, all decorated for this Christmas, 2024. I was really looking forward to putting this together for you this year. I started planning it way back in September.
Decorating a Christmas Cake each year for Christmas is a very British tradition. The Christmas Cake will be the centerpiece of the holiday meal and takes up a prominent space in the home.
You can of course buy one already decorated (in the U.K. at any rate) but there is nothing so satisfying as baking and decorating your own.
I baked my actual cake a month or so ago. I did a video about that on YouTube. This was the first year that I have baked a Christmas Cake since I returned to live in Canada from the U.K. in 2020.
I wanted to make it really special this year and so, as I said, I started planning it back in September. Gathering all of the ingredients together and the materials that I would need.
I ordered my fruit for the cake from the U.K. You can of course, put together your own dried fruit mixture. I was really wanting the fruit that I was used to getting in the U.K for authenticity. Probably a bit pretentious on my part, but oh well!
You bake the cake at least a month or even longer prior to Christmas. This gives you enough time to feed it some brandy ahead of time. Each day I have been spooning a tablespoon or two of brandy over the top of my cake allowing it to soak in while the cake ripens.
This makes for a really moist and well flavored cake. A fruit cake, ideally, should be baked enough ahead of time so that the cake can develop its flavor fully and adding some brandy helps it to do just that.
Once you are ready to decorate your cake you will want to cover it with a layer of marzipan.
I bought my marzipan from the U.K. also, but there are also British supply stores here in Canada where you can buy it, or you can be really keen and make your own from scratch.
There is a really great recipe here on how to make it from scratch and how to apply it to your cake on the BBC Good Food Page here.
I like to turn my cake upside down to decorate. Inevitably there will be little "pot holes" where a raisin or a currant has fallen out so I fill those holes in first with small bits of the marzipan. Once I have done that, a layer of warmed and sieved apricot jam is applied to the whole surface of the cake.
You can roll your marzipan out into a thin round large enough to cover the whole cake, which I have done in the past, or you can do it the way I did it this time which was to roll out the marzipan and cut a round large enough to apply to the top and then roll out more to apply as a wide strip to wrap around the sides.
Once you have your cake covered with the marzipan you will want to leave it to dry for about 24 hour or longer. This helps to prevent the color from the marzipan bleeding into the icing when you do apply it.
You can do a flat layer of fondant icing if you wish and which I have done in the past, or you can opt to make a fluffy royal icing to cover it with, which is what I did this time. I wanted to get very much a snow effect this year.
I found the little baby plastic deer which I used for this year's cake on Amazon. You can find those here. I fell completely in love with them as soon as I saw them. They were so sweet and innocent. So cute.
I actually found them first and then planned the rest of the decorations around them. I also found the bottle brush trees on Amazon.
I have a great love for red and white toadstools and actually had a small box of them in my craft room and thought they would be perfect and would inject a bit of color to the top of the cake, just at the base of the trees.
I applied a royal icing (see recipe below) over the marzipan and then put on the decorations. I wanted it to look like the baby reindeer had fallen asleep together in a Winter wonderland waiting for Christmas to arrive.
I think I managed to convey that feeling. Soft and innocent. I added some white and silver sugar pearls in a variety of sizes to give it some sparkle.
I do have a bit of tinsel garland to apply around the base of the cake, but I forgot to add that before I took my photographs.
I was thoroughly pleased with how my cake turned out this year. I can't wait to bring it to my sister's place on Christmas Day. I got exactly the effect I was hoping for. It is sweet and innocent, and I feel that it portrays perfectly the innocence of children waiting for Christmas to arrive.
I think this is my favorite one yet! I just love it. It will be a shame to cut into it, truth be known, but we won't be able to resist the fruit cake which is hiding underneath all of the cuteness!
If you would like to see some of the Christmas Cakes that I have decorated in the past you can find them here.
CHRISTMAS CAKE 2019 - This is the year I topped it with a little red car carrying home the Christmas Tree. There are snowy trees in the background, snow on the ground and a pretty ribbon decorating the sides, etc.
GINGERBREAD-MAN CHRISTMAS CAKE 2017 - This one was really cute. I did cutouts on top of Gingerbread-men, etc. This was one of my favorites!
THE YEAR I RAN OUT OF TIME - You can still decorate your cake really prettily at the last minute with a simple fluffy fondant icing, some cake sprinkles and a pretty ribbon
Yield: Enough for one cakeAuthor: Marie Rayner
Royal Icing
Prep time: 20 MinTotal time: 20 MinThis is a quick and easy recipe for royal icing to decorate an 8-inch Christmas Cake. Very simple to make, especially if you have a stand mixer!Ingredients
- 2 large egg whites (6 TBS pasteurized egg whites from the carton)
- a scant 4 cups (500g) sifted icing sugar
- 1 tsp glycerin (can use corn syrup or coconut oil)
Instructions
- Put the egg whites into the bowl and beat for 60 seconds or so to break them up.
- Start adding the icing sugar, 1 dessert spoon at a time. Leave the mixer running the whole time. Continue until all of the icing sugar has been added and you have a mixture that holds its shape and forms soft peaks.
- Add the glycerin and beat for a further5 minutes which should give the icing a good shine.
- Spoon the icing over your cake, which you should have covered with marzipan. Spread it out to cover the sides and the top with a palette knife.
- Tapping the flat side of your knife on top of the cake here and there will give it the look of snow.
- Affix any decorations to the top of the cake before it hardens and sets.
Did you make this recipe?
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