Cake decorating ideas please

[WeirdCatLady]

Hi all,

So for the first time in many, many years, I have made fruit cake for Christmas. I’m going to cover with marzipan and then royal icing. But I’ve no idea what ‘design’ to go for.

I’ve got two cakes, one medium size and one small (a boozy one and an alcohol-free version) so could do a two tier cake, or two separate ones.

I haven’t made a Christmas cake since childhood ones so I’m starting from scratch. I’m a decent baker and can do nice birthday cakes, though these have all been sugarpaste.

I’m hoping you guys can help inspire me and maybe share pics of your cakes, or any ideas you have?

Help!

Well done in your baking! Following with interest. I have made a Christmas cake for the last 3/4 years and am rubbish at decorating it. I usually just marzipan it and cover with spiked royal icing but I always feel it lets it down a bit. I did buy some icing Lakeland stars one year and kind of 'arrange' them on it but it still looked a bit sad.

I do love a bit of sparkle and already have edible glitter. I’m happy to buy decorations if I can come up with a style that I like.

It was a lot easier when dd was little as I just went with whatever she was into, but now she’s 17 so I need a grown up Christmas cake design 😂

Last year I decorated my cake like this It looked impressive and so Christmassy but was very easy.

Previous year I did this which was also pretty but gettingg the bow right took a bit longer.

Hope the links work. Will be watching the thread as I’m stumped for this year!

Should just point out, neither of those are my actual cakes, just used those images as my inspiration. (I copied them. )

Ooh littlemiss, nice 😊 I like the frosted fruit one 👍🏻

For some reason I love the dark blue sugarpaste on a cake - I suppose it's because whether you use the Christmas story or Father Christmas as your inspiration, the night sky is an important part of each. I've done a plain blue cake, with white snowflakes and edible glitter, say off by a group of sugarpaste snowflakes which I set on wires which made them float at different heights above the cake. Simple but very effective and sort of grown up. Last year I used the same dark blue colour. I then cut out Christmas trees and stars, created a scene with the trees going around the sides of the cake and the stars on top. Edible glitter again gave a 3d effect. I set it off centre on a green covered board which was much bigger and then added a Father Christmas in his sleigh, with the reindeer being up the side of the cake, as if it was just taking off. A little more work, but actually very simple.

Sounds lush! Would love to see a pic.

At the mo I am leaning towards the frosted fruit idea. Got to be done with white royal icing as the base 👍🏻

Bananas that sounds lush! I have a thing about being able to eat everything on a cake including the decoration so I'm definitely taking some inspiration from yours and going blue this year!!

Sadly I didn't take pics - I always intend to and then forget. Very simple to do though, with the help of a few Christmas themed cutters.

Ooh dark blue icing and white snowflakes sounds fabulous .
Would you do a layer of white fondant as a base then the blue (I'm thinking of the side effects , blue teeth and peeing navy )

There was a cake many years ago on the cover of a food/home magazine , red icing and white snowflakes , stunning . But the red had leached into the marzipan and it looked like sausagemeat < boak.

I've done a wreath pattern before , it's easy with the holly/ivy cutters , they have a 'press' to stamp the veins on and push them out ( if you do it onto something soft wrapped in clingfilm they don't break)

First time though I did white icing and painted the leaves with gel colouring , time consuming. Much easier to buy pre-coloured icing, there are several different greens.
Then tiny red sweets or cake decorations for the berries.

I am not doing a cake this year , it never gets eaten, but , this has inspired me to maybe do a Maderia cake and decorate it?

There’s always room for cake 70

Saw a gorgeous blue and white cake. Well worth blue tongue I would imagine.

I’m going to go with a version of Littlemiss’s frosted fruit design, I’m going to slice and dry some fruits and then artfully arrange them with some greenery, cinnamon sticks and nuts. Fingers crossed

Wow. These are all amazing!

I bought one of these www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00QNP3GNY/ref=asc_df_B00QNP3GNY56376810/?hvlocphy=1006641&linkCode=df0&hvptwo&psc=1&hvnetw=g&hvadid=205179733397&creative=22110&hvpone&hvlocint&creativeASIN=B00QNP3GNY&th=1&hvpos=1o2&hvdev=t&hvdvcmdl&hvqmt&tag=mumsnetforum-21&hvtargid=pla-538809473257&hvrand=18251346248133858962

I cover the cake in coloured fondant and the cut out snowflakes, cover the in edible glitter and arrange decoratively. I have problems with hand eye coordination so fiddly stuff is out but I can do this and it looks pretty

Those are the snowflake cutters I used. They are very good.
As for the blue icing, I usually cover the cake with a thin layer of marzipan which I stick on with warmed marmalade (I know apricot jam is traditional, but the orange flavour complements the fruit cake) . Then I use a good brush to paint whisky over the marzipan - again, the flavour goes well with the cake and the alcohol sterilises the marzipa - to make it slightly sticky so the fondant icing attaches nicely. Never had a problem with any mould between the layers of cake/marzipan/icing, even when cakes have been stored for any length of time. And it all adds to the Christmassy flavours.

The Christmas anti-gravity cake I made one year. The coins were inclined to slither down the upright.