How to decorate a plain fruitcake for a funeral?

[ShhhhhItsASurprise]

My lovely friend’s mum died recently and I’ve offered to make some cake for them to serve after the funeral - her mum’s favourite fruitcake but they want a traybake which can be cut and served in small squares. She didn’t like marzipan or icing so whenever I’ve made it for them before I’ve used glacé fruits and nuts to decorate, but that won’t work when it is to be cut into small pieces. The other cake will be lemon drizzle with edible flowers to reflect her love of her garden. Any ideas for a coordinating decoration for the fruit cake? Edible flowers don’t feel like a good match.

That sounds lovely. Or to be easier you could just alternate half cherries, apricots, fig slices, cranberry/ginger mix, one in each little square to be cut. Makes it easier to cut it into pieces, and would look pretty overall like a chequerboard. Flowers sound lovely but would take more time and might get more easily broken up when it’s sliced.

Got you on making a square cake. I'd do both a fruitcake and a lemon drizzle if you have the capacity and the funds as a lot of people don't like fruitcake although the fruitcake is more significant.

I would make it the way her mum liked it and just put a little card in front of the cakes saying it contains nuts.
if it’s being cut into small squares I would leave it plain.

I am doing both.

Just bake in a deep square tin and leave it plain. A square cake is easier to cut into portions. Good luck. I hope all goes well.

I don't know what kind of fruitcake it is but if it's not rich, something like a boiled fruit cake, you could sprinkle demerara sugar on top - my DM used to do this before it was baked.

@ShhhhhItsASurprise

You’re an amazing friend!

I like the idea of a glacé cherry on each cut portion, you could alternate with something else maybe like a half of apricot or something?

Either way, I’m sure they’ll love it!

Maybe some premade little sugar flowers would work if you're using a glaze they can stick to. What a kind thing to do for your friend.
www.oetker.co.uk/products/p/mini-wafer-flowers

So the fruit cake is done. I chatted to my friend about a couple of things and came up with a solution which I think is very pretty. I won’t share a picture before the funeral as you never know who is reading.

The lemon drizzle will have edible flowers on it so that’s more straightforward. I’m baking that tonight.

When I have baked for church I have often mixed edible glitter with the icing sugar so it sparkles. People always comment and I say it represents special prayers.

Will you be dividing up the cake. If not I would leave it plain. If you are I would place a small piece of alternating candied lemon and orange peel on. Maybe brush with a tiny bit of apricot jam to stick.

I'm craving homemade fruit cake now.

I'd leave it uniced and undecorated. That's the best kind of fruit cake anyway.

Just leave it as plain fruit cake, maybe.

As per my last update, the fruit cake is already made.

Like that’ll stop the responses…

Glad it’s all done OP and you came up with a plan. Good luck with the lemon drizzle - it’s a lovely thing you’re doing.

if you decorate 100 - 120 pieces of cake, how are you going to transport them so you don’t have to rearrange the decorations that might slip whilst being transported?

Have you considered not decorating them at all? Maybe you’d have time to quickly arrange them on the day - lots of slices on the bottom layer then off set few on the next layer and so on ?

The funeral was yesterday.

As I said up thread, they were 2x 12” squares. If you cut them into 1” squares that would be 144 pieces per cake. No
issues transporting them or cutting them on site. There weren’t any layers?

The edible flowers were stuck to the lemon cake with a drizzle of lemon icing. The fruit cake decorations were baked into the top of the cake, so there was no disturbance.

Both went down really well and the family were very grateful for the effort I made. The service was lovely, a decent number of people attended and many had pieces of both cakes. The family took the remaining 1/3rd of each cake home to share with others that couldn’t attend and to enjoy in the garden over the long weekend.

Well baked @ShhhhhItsASurprise what a lovely friend you are

Sorry I‘d missed the date. Well done for all that you did.
I just meant arrange the fruit squares in offset layers, so a decorative serving arrangement rather than decorating the actual fruit cake pieces. But was too late anyway! Glad it went well.