Friday, December 21, 2007

Starry Christmas Cake

Well, here we are. Christmas Eve. The stuffings are made - one chestnut with apricots and ginger that will go in the bird and one 'green' stuffing made with leeks, spring greens and lots of herbs. The turkey is sitting in the fridge awaiting its fate tomorrow. The timeplan is written - this is my first year cooking the lunch so it could be interesting (!). My niece and nephew are just getting out the mince pie for Father Christmas and a carrot for Rudolph and we are all feeling very festive.

I finally iced my Christmas cake. A very simple design seeing as this is also my first ever attempt. The pressure was on as my sister is a professional wedding cake maker and my mother is also very skilled - one wonders why I volunteered. But I'm quite pleased with the result. I was less pleased with the cake itself - I followed Delia's recipe and it was totally overcooked miles before she suggested. I've been feeding it over the past few weeks though with 'soaking mixture' - equal parts of sweet Oloroso sherry, dark rum and glycerine and it feels fairly sticky and moist now.

To decorate, I filled in any holes with marzipan before covering with marzipan (using warmed apricot jam as the 'glue'.

After the marzipan and I covered with fondant icing and topped simply with different shaped stars. First I tried all white stars...

I loved the all white look, but also wanted to experiment with some edible silver lustre I had in the cupboard. In the end I went half silver/half white. By the time I finished it was rather last, hence the rather poor quality photos...

I wish everyone very Happy Christmas! May you have a wonderful and fun-filled day and, of course, a wonderful lunch!

5 comments:

Greg said...

I think the cake turned out gorgeous! I've never done anything like this. I really should dive into fondant one of these days. I'm pretty bad with a pastry bag though.

Rosie said...

Your cake is truly gorgeous Antonia! You say about your sister and mother being professional & skilled well, you are in the same league my dear friend!!! Well done :)

Happy New Year

Rosie x

Trekkie said...

I think star designs were definitely 'in' this year. Once I post my photos, you'll know what I mean!!!!

Hope you had a fabulous Christmas xxxx

Abitofafoodie said...

Greg - thank you. I hope you had a great Christmas! I was surprised how 'easy' it was to decorate. Didn't go anywhere near a piping bag.

Rosie - thank you so much. I was quite pleased with this as a first attempt though it is nothing compared with your cake decorating skills!

Lynn - look forward to seeing your cake. I love anything with a star motif! Hope you had a great Christmas too.

Anonymous said...

That is an incredible looking cake. You did a great job!