How I decorated my Christmas cake (and I'm rubbish at this kind of stuff)

I'm no sugar crafter.  You will see this from my results but although an amateur, I am quite pleased with how my cake turned out this year and the big secret was, it was so easy.

There is no hard stuff here but I'll give it to you with all the short cuts...  You don't even need an icing bag!


I use ready made ready to roll marzipan and icing.  The first thing was to make the leaves.

Add some green food colouring to some ready to roll icing.  Try to avoid the "Southampton colours", especially if feeding to kids.  To do this, add in a few drops with a bit of icing sugar then kneed it in on a board (be careful, food colourings can stain).

Once the colour is consistent, roll it out.

I have some plunger cutters for some of the leaf types, otherwise I use cookie cutters.  If you don't have a plunger cutter for the markings, get a non poisonous leaf which hasn't been sprayed, e.g. a rose leaf and press the reverse side into icing.  Cut out the shapes.

Leave the leaves to dry, dry some on scrunched foil or on something cylindrical so they don't all dry flat.  This just looks a bit cooler!  If you like, either make some icing with slightly different shade of green or pick out the veins with additional colour.

Leave these to dry.  It might take a day or two if you do paint them with colour.

When you're ready to ice your cake, roll out the marzipan.  Warm up some apricot jam with a little water in a microwave.

Put your cake on the surface you're going to present it on, this might be a plate or a board.  Put it upside down so you have the flat side on top.

Brush the cake with the apricot jam then press on the rolled out marzipan, cutting off excess and moulding it with your hands.  Experience with play dough may be useful here...

Then boil some water while you're rolling out the icing.  Brush the marzipan layer with water then cover again with the icing.  This layer is a bit more forgiving than the marzipan.

Trim off the excess then add your decoration!

To make it stick or if you're right into the fancy icing stuff, mix some egg white with icing sugar until really stiff then use that for all that fancy icing stuff or to stick on your easy icing leaves.

Stand back and wait for admiration!  Leave it to dry out uncovered (but away from insects / pests / curious children and animals) for a few hours before covering.

Please add your Christmas cake pictures to my Facebook feed!

Merry Christmas from Mamacook!