Sugar Coated Iceberg // Lightning Seeds

Christmas Cake #1

I am half way through icing my first christmas cake - number one of twelve.

Started by levelling the top off - which I am always too generous with. This means that I end up with space at the bottom of the cake which will need generous stuffing with marzipan to level it up. I guess this is a good thing for those who love marzipan.
I got in from work and the decision to start icing tonight was spontaneous, which is leading to problem after problem. Firstly I don't have any apricot jam, only some kind of conserve - which I know is the same, and I'm being fussy.. but I like to have a cheap apricot jam so that there aren't any fruity lumps under my icing.



The fact that I had very little marzipan left meant I couldn't put the base on quite as well as I hoped. I can handle this, along as it is a comparitively smooth layer for the sugar paste, I don't really care what it looks like.

The final problem so far is that as my kitchen is stupidly small, I have all my cake dec equipment in tool boxes in my bedroom. This means that my room is getting messier and messier as I rush in and out.
I think I'm getting stressed out by nothing.

The next few stages should be a doddle as this cake is a gift, it doesn't need to be fancy, and they like a bit of ribbon bunged on. I'm a firm believer that ribbon shouldn't go on a cake unless it's completely ballsed up. So this gives me some space to go wrong...



...which I did. I was sort of gun-ho and just went for it and slopped my beautifully rolled sugar paste on to the wrong bit of cake, panicked and ripped it. In the end the patch up wasn't so obvious, but it got a bit jammy.
I had great fun using my new icing gun - a bit of a risky gadget. I'm using it to make ribbons for the bottom of the cakes, as I've decided royal icing and piping is too much of a faff. It works very nicely, but it's quite hard work on the arms, and I need to work out a way to block up the holes so I only get one ribbon.....



Finished with a simple glittery star and some silver and black ribbon - not much effort at all. Which is just what I needed to get me back into the swing of cake decorating.