I hope you all had a lovely Christmas this weekend. Since my last blog I decorated my Christmas cake for this year and made a lot of Christmas orders. I decided to make gingerbread trees because I loved them so much from last night and it wouldn’t be Christmas without gingerbread. Christmas is always one of my favourite times of the year and I was so happy with my Christmas bakes this year. This blog isn’t really a recipe just a chatty one about Christmas and my cake.
I made my cake for this year when I was back home in October, I think it was the last week of October I made it. Since then my mam had been feeding it with rum once a week when I was back at uni. I had to remind her to make sure she’d done it. I came back home from uni for Christmas at the start of December. I don’t know why but this year I wanted to make a winter wonderland themed cake. I had a proper brainstorm of Christmas bakes at the start of November I was even sad enough to make a PowerPoint and everything. This theme was going to go on a normal cake but I thought we’d push the boat out and add it to the Christmas cake instead. Christmas is the one of time of year I cover a cake in fondant because I’m not a big fan. The day before I decorated my cake I made the decorations. I started by making a nice chubby polar bear out of fondant. I even added a little red and white scarf to him. I was so happy with how he turned out. I then made some little penguins because for some reason I wanted them to be swimming on top of the cake. The penguins even had little red hats and I thought they were so cute. For the igloo I mainly made this out of fondant and then covered it in mini marshmallows. I was beyond excited to decorate this cake.
Using some Isomalt sugar I heated this until it was clear and melted. I added some blue food colouring and poured it on my silicon mat in a roundish shape for my lake. The next day I covered the cake in apricot jam and marzipan. I had pre-rolled fondant because that was just easier for me. I tried to get them both as smooth as possible and with a bit of ribbon around the bottom you couldn’t even see the imperfect edges. Now it was time to add the decorations. The Isomalt lake was cool and I put two penguins around this and a ring of snow balls. Using a toothpick and using flower wire I made it look like the penguins were fishing. I placed the igloo, penguin and polar bear on the cake and dusted with some white glitter. This gave a nice frosty look. I adored this cake especially thinking back to the start of the year when I wouldn’t touch fondant. Just like that my mam’s Christmas cake was all finished.
Then came the Christmas orders. I did a variety of cupcake flavours, peppermint, gingerbread, hot chocolate and chocolate orange to name a few. I thought the orders were going to be stressful but the decoration especially the brownies was so therapeutic. I think I finally perfected my brownie mix which is another bonus. Above you can see a nice collage of my orders. It was such a proud moment and so satisfying seeing them all together. All this baking certainly got my in the festive mood and we can’t forget this beautiful reindeer cake I made as well. My beautiful topper set finished my cake off nicely. This has been on my list for a while. I’ve ticked off so many bakes this year and I’ve already got a list ready for next year.
I’m sure this Christmas was different for everybody but I hope you have had a good day. I had a nice couple days off baking before my mam’s 50th birthday this week and then I’ve got my New Year cake planned. For both these cakes I’m trying something new, may as well end the year with a new technique. I really hope they turn out how I’m hoping they will. Enjoy the last week of 2020 preparing for the New Year. I know I’m already starting to reflect on my favourite bakes from this year.
Lots of love,
Hannah xx
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