Icing Christening cake

[kohl]

I'm sure this has been done done done, but all the other old threads seem to be for people a little more practiced than me. Seriously. I know NOTHING.

I have a layer from my wedding cake in the freezer - de marzipanned and de iced. I'm planning on reicing and serving at DD's baptism on saturday.

Questions:
This is a rank, but we only froze the cake several months after the wedding - will it be ok to eat? (I figured the fact it was marzipanned and iced would preserve it)

If the answer to that is yes:
When do you think I'll need to take it out of the freezer?
Will I need to remarzipan?
Icing? Will ready roll royal icing be ok?
I read somewhere that I'll need jam??
Once iced does the thing need to go in the fridge?
HEEELPPPPP!!!!

I also thought I could ice DD's name and the date on the cake. Is this too stupid for words from an icing novice?

(please be gentle, I am doing all the food for 70 and am eyeballing the freezer in fear and mainlining gin as we speak.)

Is it a rich fruit cake? I have those sitting in various air-tight boxes because I batch-make them for Christmas etc. They're quite happy as long as they're kept sealed for literally months. So I'd defrost it starting ASAP. I would then poke it with a skewer all over and lace it with a few teaspoons of alcohol (sherry for example) as a way of moistening the whole thing. Freezers tend to dry things out. After this has all had chance to soak in, remarzipan and ice with roll-out icing. Melted apricot jam spread thinly on the cake helps the marzipan stick to the surface, that's all.

Don't put it in the fridge afterwards. The icing should act as a seal to keep the moisture in and rich fruit cake is indestructible anyway. Cover with a cake box to keep out dust and insects.

Wonderful, thanks so much Cogito. Blessed Mumsnet saves my ass again.

I bought letter stencils and cut out DS's name in coloured paste for his christening cake - it looked v good.

herecomesthesun thanks - sounds much easier than attempting to ice her name - but when you say coloured paste...what do you mean (thicko cake decorating emoticon) is this something you can buy or do I need to make it?

iirc it was an envelope of paste to which you add (blue) food colouring - ready coloured here and stencils though not quite the same as I used. It still took hours but the effect was v good. I put gold stars between his names.

Thankyou! Will give it a go...

ha ha I read this as Christmas and thought

You need to take it out of the freezer ASAP.

Whe defrosted, cover the cake in a thin layer of apricot jam, then put the marzipan on. Leave to dry for one day.

Brush the marzipanned cake with a little water and then put the fondant on. Ideally this should be left to dry out for another day as if you attempt to decorate it, the fondant will still be a little soft and you could find yourself with dints/dents in it - whilst fondant is not hard ayway, it is best left one day.

I have used fondant that I have coloured myself - do not use food colouring, you need proper paste colouring. Or for quickness ready coloured is good. Either way, coloured fondant or the colouring needs to be bought from a specialist cake shop.

Btw, do not store the finished iced cake in a plastic lidded box, it will sweat. Just put a tea towel over the top or if you have a proper cardboard cake box it will sit happily in there too.

Thanks so much guys, all iced...a bit wonky, but hopefully the love that's gone into it will make up for the patched up bit at the bottom...