Ok, here's the deal, I am a pretty competent cake maker. Indeed friends and family would say I have a reputation for rustling up rather delicious cakes, puddings, biscuits etc. So on those grounds my mum has asked me to bake the cake for my grandfather's 90th birthday (which is now only 10 days away).

All good - I have made a Nigel Slater country fruit cake, which I am feeding regularly with brandy

Here's the issue - I have a morbid fear of cake decorating. I'm fine at slapping on a bit of butter icing for my kids party cakes, but I think what I need here is some of that stylish white regal ice stuff rolled out and and some sort of decoration applied. Again, all is not lost, to help me conquer my fear dp got me a 1 day cake decorating course as my Christmas present. It was marvellous - but a bit advanced, and aimed at the already competent. We learned 6 different decorating techniques, by practising on a cake board, but learned nothing about how to go about getting icing onto a real, live (and somewhat bumpy) cake!.

So ... questions:
1. I'm assuming I need some kind of marzipan layer on top of the fruit cake first? Is that right. I'm planning to apply it this weekend as I also gather it needs to dry out before I stick the icing on. I have a recipe to make my own, is that madness, or should I just buy some?
2. Do I need anything else to glue the icing onto the marzipan? Apricot jam or similar?
3. When it comes to the icing - I was planning to buy some of that regal ice ready roll stuff (which I've never used!), does anyone have any tips for getting the blooming stuff neatly onto a cake without having a nervous breakdown?
4. How far in advance can I put it on - i.e. will it dry out?
5. For the decoration - the simplest thing we did on my course was apply coloured powder through a stencil (both of which I have), so I was planning some yellow roses with green leaves, round the edge of my square cake and then some naff sort of plastic "Happy Birthday" cake decoration thing in the middle. Does that sound ok? Bear in mind this is for a 90th, and frankly anything I can rustle up will probably get a pretty enthusiastic reception.

Phew - sorry for long post - any responses from cake decorating gurus (or otherwise!) very very gratefully received ...

The ready made stuff is really good for this kind of eventuality.

I'd get ready made marzipan, make an apricot jam glaze (apricot jam, heated, with a little boiling water if it's thick). Roll out the marzipan to larger than the cake (use icing sugar to roll on) then lift on with a rolling pin and squash the edges down and cut off any excess.

Same with ready made icing - roll out with icing sugar and put on. Not sure if you need to use glaze in between the icing and the marzipan. Maybe boiling water brushed over would work better?

Your stencil idea sounds lovely! You could also tie a ribbon round the outside and pin it which would hide any rough edges.

Good luck - it will be great.

If you don't let the marzipan dry a bit (say overnight) it can leach yellow almond oil into the icing - at least that's what it usually does to me! I always use ready-made and just dust it with icing sugar and then put the icing straight on it. Incidentally, royal icing like that doesn't dry out very quickly. Icing a few days in advance should be fine.

Marvellous, marvellous - I'll be heading out to buy some marzipan. Any idea how much I need to decorate a 9inch square cake.

And the next dumb question - I accidentally bought Sugarpaste instead of "regal ice" - is sugarpaste no good for covering this kind of cake?

No sugar paste will not be any good - to delicate.

Have you thought of putting an edible photo on it - it's really easy and if you have a digital photo you can get send it and get back the edible ones the next day. Then you just lay it on top of the regalice and blend in the edges

you need to do a starburst cake
You can buy the stars on wire and the stars ready cut out. They are very effective. You can also buy numbers on wires I did this for my grandmother's 90th

like this

here is one with numbers

Go to a decent cake decorating shop you can buy the icing ready made too, much nicer than the royal one

you can order here or similar

hmmmm ... I'm a bit confused here, the sugarpaste I've bought is for 'covering cakes' in fact CountessD's website lists under Edibles 'Sugarpaste' for covering cakes, and then lists under this a whole load of things called 'Regalice', so maybe I do have the right thing.

I'm going to have to go home and read the packaging.

CountessD - I love that starburst thing - I may have left it a bit late to order anything new, but could put that down to try for my dd's birthday, if I survive the experience of doing this one.

Also absolutely LOVE the edible photo idea - my word I had no idea such things were possible. Can't think of an appropriate pic for this one, but am just racking my brains for an opportunity to try that one out. Dp's 40th is coming up ...

Goes off into cake-obsessed flat spin!

Where do you live Pidge?

sugar paste is just a more delicate form of ready roll fondant icing. You could use it for covering cakes, but it tends to be more brittle when set and is not so easy to mould and smooth round corners (if you get any breaks in your icing just use wet fingers to mould it back together - bit like clay) It's what you would use to make stuff like flowers.

tip for getting icing onto cake - roll it out on baking parchment with some (not much)cornflour on - the roll the whole lot (baking parchment and all) up on a rolling pin and unroll it (baking parchment on top) over the cake.

Definitely apricot jam for glueing marzipan to cake

Leave marzipan as long as you can

dampen it very slightly to get the icing to stick.

smooth icing over top and sides and then trim excess with v. sharp knife at corners.

If you can't face decorating it find a cake decorating shop and buy something to plonk on top - lots of them do reasonably priced ready-made figures, etc.

Good luck

Thanks folks - just got home and took a closer look at what I ordered and it says "RegalIce" so it is definitely the right stuff for cake covering! Phew.

Thanks so much for the tips. I will let you know how I get on and will try to post a picture if the end result is not utterly shameful (I can always rip off all the decoration and present a plain fruit cake!!).

Marzipan is now on cake - on the recommendation of a friend I bought ready-rolled marzipan, which was great - except for my inability to read the box, so I bought a round of marzipan to cover and 8 inch circular cake, when I have a 9 inch square cake. oops . But I just rolled it out vigorously till it was a bit bigger and it just about covered everything!

Icing due to go on Weds or Thurs this week ... will let you know how I go!