Cake Decoration & Sugarcraft — December 2017

44 | December 2017 http://www.cakedecorationmagazine.co.uk

CHRISTMAS PAST

YOU WILL NEED

EDIBLES:

• 20cm and 15cm (8in and 6in)
  round cakes, mounted on cake
  boards of equal sizes, covered
  in ivory sugarpaste (pre-
  coloured or coloured up from
  white using chestnut brown by
  Squire’s Kitchen)


• 100g sugar florist paste:
  white mixed with 50g white
  sugarpaste


• edible colour dust: honeydew
  (Roxy & Rich)


• edible tint colours: foliage
  green and ruby blossom
  (Sugarflair)


• clear alcohol or lemon juice


• 150g royal icing: white and
  coloured with a scant chestnut
  brown (Squire’s Kitchen)

EQUIPMENT:

• 25cm (10in) cake board
  covered in ivory sugarpaste


• 10cm (4in) round polystyrene
  separator tier, mounted on a
  10cm (4in) thin cake card


• holly leaf plunger cutter (PME)


• large holly leaf cutter


• no.12 large round nozzle
  (Wilton)


• disposable piping bag fitted
  with a coupler


• no.13 open star nozzle (PME)


• no.2 round nozzle (PME)


• double-sided tape


• 15mm green mist satin ribbon


• 70mm green mist satin ribbon


• paintbrushes


• 4 x doweling rods

Seeing as pretty much everything that we associate with Christmas comes from the German

traditions popularised by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, it would be rude not to honour

them in cake over the festive season.

A VERY

Victorian Christmas

One of the traditions that started

with the Victorians was that

of sending Christmas Cards –

coinciding with the introduction of

the ‘Penny Post’, this was a canny

move which resulted in lots of extra

postage stamps being purchased to

send cards around the country!

I love the designs of Victorian

Christmas cards and have taken the

simple hand-painted Holly designs

for this cake. So much of this can

be done in advance – the leaves

and berries can all be stamped and

painted weeks before the cake is

served, which should help at this

busy time of year. Having a pretty

cake to set at the Christmas table is

well worth the extra effort.

PREPARE YOUR CAKES

Begin by covering your cake tiers with ivory sugarpaste. You can buy ivory

sugarpaste but a dab of chestnut brown paste colour will colour up from

white with ease. Allow the tiers to dry overnight before decorating.

Cover your 25cm (10in) cake board with ivory sugarpaste, trimming the

edges neatly and setting this aside to dry with your cake tiers.

1 Cut out holly leaves by rolling

modelling paste (SFP mixed

with sugarpaste to make it a

little less quick to dry out) thinly

and stamping out your shapes.

I used two different sizes and

cut around thirty of each size.

It is far better to have too many

cut out than not enough!

Leave these to dry completely.

Cut out modelling paste holly

berries in two sizes using a large

round piping nozzle. Smaller

berries can be cut using the

smaller end of the nozzle and

larger ones from the larger end.

Leave these to dry completely

along with the leaves.

CAKE ARTIST:

Charlotte White

RESTORATION CAKE

QUEEN VICTORIA (1819 – 1901) AND HER BELOVED PRINCE ALBERT (1819 – 1861)

2 Mix a pale green edible paint

from dust colour mixed with a little

clear alcohol or lemon juice.

Paint the edges of each holly leaf

with pale green.

3 Paint a line along the centre of

each holly leaf with pale green.

Paint veins from the central line of

each holly leaf in pale green. ➜

p44-48_Charlotte White.indd 44 06/10/2017 10:58