Christmas is the perfect time for indulging and making some yummy treats for the family. With extra time off work, I was able to try a few different festive recipes. First up was a Christmas pudding which was actually made by my Aunty but decorated by me. This was the first cake I iced with marzipan and icing and for a first attempt I think I did ok! With a couple of festive decorations, my mum shared this cake with her friends over present exchange night! I found that by dusting both the work surface and the rolling pin with icing sugar aswell as adding icing sugar to the top side of the fondant icing to stop it sticking to the rolling pin, the icing lost its colour and appeared more powdery than I desired but lesson learned... I now know not to do this again. I now put a dusting of icing sugar on the work surface and a slight dusting on the rolling pin so the colour and appearance of the icing is not affected. I ensure that when placing the icing over the cake, I keep the top side of the icing upwards as it has better colouring and appearance than the underneath side which has had direct contact with more icing sugar.
Next up on my festive list was a christmas roulade. I got the recipe for this roulade from a Christmas edition of You magazine and it was easy to follow. I expected the roulade to have a spongey texture but infact it has more of a meringue texture and is very light. Whilst the roulade is still flat before rolling, I coated it with a thick layer of a homemade creamy sweet filling. I then rolled the roulade with the guidance of a piece of baking paper. The recipe said the more cracks and imperfections, the better the roulade so I was pretty chuffed with the outcome. I added a few festive decorations and sprinkled icing sugar over it to give it a snowy christmassy appearance. This cake went down well on Christmas night..once we had enough room after dinner!!
And last but not least... My Christmas tree cupcakes! I made these cupcakes to share with work mates over our Christmas meal. I made chocolate sponge cupcakes then piped green buttercream in the shape of Christmas trees (which took a few attempts before perfecting), then added edible balls to imitate baubles and topped the buttercream with gold stars. I was very happy with these cupcakes and think they would be perfect sweet snacks for a Christmas get together! I will definately be making these next year again.
Christmas is the perfect time for indulging and making some yummy treats for the family. With extra time off work, I was able to try a few different festive recipes. First up was a Christmas pudding which was actually made by my Aunty but decorated by me. This was the first cake I iced with marzipan and icing and for a first attempt I think I did ok! With a couple of festive decorations, my mum shared this cake with her friends over present exchange night! I found that by dusting both the work surface and the rolling pin with icing sugar aswell as adding icing sugar to the top side of the fondant icing to stop it sticking to the rolling pin, the icing lost its colour and appeared more powdery than I desired but lesson learned... I now know not to do this again. I now put a dusting of icing sugar on the work surface and a slight dusting on the rolling pin so the colour and appearance of the icing is not affected. I ensure that when placing the icing over the cake, I keep the top side of the icing upwards as it has better colouring and appearance than the underneath side which has had direct contact with more icing sugar.
Next up on my festive list was a christmas roulade. I got the recipe for this roulade from a Christmas edition of You magazine and it was easy to follow. I expected the roulade to have a spongey texture but infact it has more of a meringue texture and is very light. Whilst the roulade is still flat before rolling, I coated it with a thick layer of a homemade creamy sweet filling. I then rolled the roulade with the guidance of a piece of baking paper. The recipe said the more cracks and imperfections, the better the roulade so I was pretty chuffed with the outcome. I added a few festive decorations and sprinkled icing sugar over it to give it a snowy christmassy appearance. This cake went down well on Christmas night..once we had enough room after dinner!!
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