Christmas Cake

I made the actual cake back in October (which was probably a bit late) using Mary Berry's standard Christmas cake recipe, feeding it with Cointreau a few times. Unfortunately I only got a chance to decorate it on Christmas Eve so didn't have much time.

I've always loved a design in one of my cake decorating books "The Home guide to Cake Decorating". It's a fantastic book and there's a template for the Three Kings with as a piped run-out with royal icing, it also has fancy collars round the edges.

Being pushed for time I decided to paint onto the cake. I've wanted to try this for a while after seeing beautiful cakes like this from Birthday Cake Party:

I used an edible marker pen to draw on the outline using the tempate in the book as a guide. I had wanted to get black paste for the outlines, but as luck would have it , it was the only colour sold out in the shop. I'd definately use it next time to get a stronger outline.

I then used food colours to paint. These worked out okay, but the colour was a bit thin and it was a bit watery for fine work. Lustre dust mixed with alcohol made for a much more effective result. Here the blue is food colouring and the purple and gold are lustre dusts. I kept the colours to a minimum as I liked the effect. The gold came out really sparkly, I can wait to use it again. I might get some silver too!

And the finished product. I did go over the lines a bit, but I was trying not to put any more fingerprints in the icing from leaning my hand on it. I think if I had more time I'd do a better job but I'd like to give painting another go. We still have some cake left but as it keeps practically forever I'm enjoying it!