Tuesday 3 January 2012

Christmas Cakes Special

The first Christmas cake was a present to my dad. Its a whisky soaked fruit cake covered in marzipan and white regal ice and decorated with stockings, gingerbread men and reindeer around the edge and Santa Clause and the Snowman on top with a small Forest. The stockings idea came from the '1000 Ways to Decorate Cakes' book which I regularly look at for ideas and inspiration, it doesn't show you how to make the decorations just pictures of finished cakes but it is a really good book to have.
The rest of the decoration came from my noggin. Santa and the Snowman can be eaten but will last a while if dad decides to keep them.
































Christmas Cake Pops


Since making the Halloween Cake Pops I've been dieing to make more so I thought as a gift for my Grandad and friend Jessica I would create some Christmas themed cake pops. I chose simple characters as time was limited so I went for the snowman, reindeer and Christmas puds.

The cake pop mixture was chocolate cake and chocolate butter cream so all I had to do for the puds was melt some white chocolate and pour a bit on top then once dried add holly and berries.

The snowman was next to be hit with white chocolate, this time I coated the body first then stuck the head on and covered that after. Once dried I added black spots for coal using royal icing and a fondant orange nose.

The last one was the reindeer, he was coated like the snowman but in milk chocolate and left to dry, during that time I used a tree cutter to make antlers and left them to harden so I could stick them on later. The belly was made with a heart cutter in teddy bear brown and white fondant for the eyes and red for the nose.

I really liked the Christmas Cake Pops they had a very festive look to them and make you smile when you look at them, well it does me.





























Patchwork Christmas Cake


This wasn't made with fruit cake as the person who ordered it doesn't like fruit cake and doesn't like marzipan either.

It is a replicate (pretty much) of the Christmas Cake I made last year (2010) for my dad and it had court her eye while looking through my cake catalogue and she really wanted one for her family at Christmas but to be made with chocolate Madeira cake instead of fruit. I put a double layer of chocolate butter cream in to keep it moist, I don't think there's anything different from the first cake except colour so for more information on how I made it go to last years Christmas post to find out.




















Snowman Christmas Cake


This cake was for my grandma who asked for a Christmas cake with not much fondant on but marzipan on top, so I thought it would be a good idea to make a pattern with the snowflakes that were made out of white fondant and linked together. It was the best way to keep the fondant to a minimum but to still have a pretty design. The snowman was to add a bit of fun to the cake and can be eaten or kept, the ribbon around the cake was to add a bit of colour.













Santa and Snowmen Christmas Cake


The snowman Christmas Cake used the patchwork cutters again, I really like the effect they give to a cake it can build up a scene in no time at all depending on the cutters used.

For this cake I used the two snowmen who are decorating the Christmas tree as Santa falls over in the snow. Around the edge are snowflakes in white fondant and I added a bit of glitter to both the snowflakes and the snow on top.

The Cake is a whisky soaked fruit cake and covered with marzipan and light blue regal ice.













Retirement Cake

The retirement cake was for the Head Mistress at Myton Park Primary School. The cake was vanilla Madeira cake with vanilla butter cream and decorated in burgundy and white regal ice. The design on top of the cake is the Myton Park emblem, this I had to cut out free-hand as I don't have any leaf cutters like the one on the emblem and the writing was piped on with royal icing.