Thursday, December 19, 2013

More Christmas Cakes

Christmas madness is in full swing at work (bless my father for asking if things were beginning to wind down now - they're not) it's also in full swing at home. Christmas biscuits are made, Christmas fudge is made, oranges have been candied and dipped in chocolate, I finally found some reasonably priced figs with which to make fig and pomegranate jam,  Fiona Cairns Fig and Almond mince meat has been tested in a mince pie and found extremely satisfactory, cards are written and posted and finally all the cakes have been decorated. 

I guess it's obvious that I love baking (I really do) so the chance to bake for others is one of the things I like most about Christmas. If I had more time (or was more organised) I would do a lot more of it, there were a whole stack of recipes in Annie Rigg's 'Sweet Things' I wanted to have a go at but haven't quite gotten round to (cherry and kirsch fudge is cooling as I type though) and there should be plenty of time in the new year to play in the kitchen so for now the cakes are an end to it all. 


There have been a few cakes this year and I've been reasonably pleased with all of them, working out decorative ideas and trying to make them work is another Christmas pleasure. The one with the sugar paste wreath was going to have a simple but elegant ivy leaf design but it became clear that sometimes more is better in that the more I piled on the better it looked. It's the first time I've tried colouring sugar paste so I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it turned out to be. 

The cake with the stag on is for new year and will be travelling so I thought a flat design would be better, I've had some gold leaf hanging around for a while so it seemed like a good time to use it. There must be a right way to apply gold leaf to things but I have no idea what it is. I bought a quantity of it a couple of Christmases ago with the idea of covering gingerbread for presents, one failed biscuit suggested it might be an expensive error of judgement. Further experiments haven't made me like working with it any more. I find it sticks to everything you don't want it to (brushes, fingers, tweezers, the packaging it came in) but absolutely doesn't want to stick to what you want it on. It blows about on the faintest draft or breath, jumps about with static, rips, or sticks to itself, rubs off whatever you're putting it on with the lightest of pressure - and generally makes you feel like the best option would have been to stick it altogether in one lump and sell it for scrap value. Plan 'A' had been for something a bit neater, plan 'B' for a less uniform more ragged effect came into play with the first leaf. It will be interesting to see how much remains on the cake as opposed to the side of the cake tin by the time we want to eat it. 

8 comments:

  1. I am always in awe of your cake-decorating talents. I think the gold leaf looks great!

    Is sugar paste difficult to make? I have a four-year-old's birthday to decorate in my future, and I hate that shop-bought stuff.

    'the chance to bake for others is one of the things I like most about Christmas' - sigh, I don't suppose you'd like to adopt me? :)

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    1. I've never made it but I don't think it's hard, though having looked at a recipe I don't think there would be much difference between home made and bought. I buy the plain white ready to roll stuff (waitrose own label) and find it's okay. I wouldn't buy ready coloured because to much would get wasted (and it turned out to be very easy to colour which also means more nuanced shades).

      It would be lovely of you were close enough to bake for, though in truth my cakes always look rather more 'home made' in the flesh than they do in photo's.

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  2. I have no idea how you manage to do all this - and do it so well - and work in retail at Christmas. It all looks and sounds lovely. I hope it's therapeutic.

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    1. It helps that I don't have children! The baking is very therapeutic, I really enjoy it and find it absorbing enough to let me turn off from work. Also I haven't really done any housework for weeks...

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  3. I love your ivy-topped cake - the colours are gorgeous. Generally I mostly end up with brightly coloured fingers when I use food colouring!

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    1. That's what I assumed would happen but amazingly it didn't. I was fully prepared to spend the week with bright green fingers.

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  4. I have never made a Christmas cake before but will have a go one year. I need to perfect my mocha shortbread this year. Keep burning it!

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  5. Hello, those cakes look fantastic, I've never made one that looked fancy like those!

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