Difficulty  (3)

These little cakes are baked in a 4″ tin and make lovely gifts for family and friends.

 You may click on any picture in this guide to enlarge it

An 8″ round cake recipe will make 3 of these cakes or alternatively if you are making a large cake for example an 8″, use a 10″ recipe instead and make one small cake at the same time.

Feed and wrap for a couple of weeks before decorating.

To Decorate

You will need a 6″ board and box.  These are available by mail order from a Piece of Cake Thame.
500 grams marzipan
500 grams fondant
Coloured fondant to decorate

Cover the cake in Marzipan and Fondant

To mark round the side of the cake where the frills are to go, take a piece of greaseproof paper long enough to go around the cake and then fold it in half.  Using a cup or other round object draw a semi-circle and cut this out.  Place against the cake and using a pointed modelling tool or the point of a knife, mark along the top of the paper template to create an indentation in the fondant.

Using a small writing tube, pipe small dots or shells around the base of the cake.  Leave to dry.

Make holly leaves and berries

Using red fondant, roll out thinly.

Using a frill cutter or a biscuit cutter and an egg cup to make the centre hole cut out a circle.

Make a cut through the fondant frill and open up.

Using a small dowel and some cornflower, carefully work round the circle by rolling the dowel from side to side to ‘frill’ the fluted edge of the fondant.

Cut the ends to make them straight and tidy.

Using a small clean artists brush and some cool boiled water, brush a little water over the indents you made on the side of the cake.

Gently lift the frill and place the one end on to the dampend indent on the cake and working along this mark, gently press the frill onto the cake.

Using a modelling tool or a cocktail stick, gently lift the bottom edge of the frill from the cake to arrange into folds.  Continue round the cake and leave to dry overnight.

When dry take a small artists brush and gently brush off any cornflour.  Repeat with a white fill directly above the red one.  When the second frill is in place, using a small pointed knife, trim the top edge of the frill where it is joined to the cake to make a neat edge.  If the frill starts to fall from the cake just brush a little water onto the cake and re-attach it.

Using white royal icing and a writing tube, pipe a line of dots along the trimmed edge of the frill.  At the top point of each curve, pipe a line of dots up to the top edge of the cake.

The top of the cake can then be decorated.  If you have made large cakes, any left over holly leaves and berries can be used on the little cake.  Holly leaves around a Christmas Roses are also effective and a Pointsettia is a simple but effective decoration.

 
Starting with the large cutter and progressing down to the smallest, cut out 10, 9, 8 and 7 petals.
Dampen the top of the cake with a little boiled water and start to arrange the large petals in a flower shape leaving a small space in the centre.  As you lay the petals, bend some of them so they do not lay completely flat.  Continue with the smallet petals placing the next size in between the last size.

Taking the yellow fondant make 5 small balls.  Roll the ball to make a small cone shape and use a Ball Tool to hollow out the cone.  Paint the centre of the cone with a little green food colouring and place in the centre of the flower with a little royal icing. 

Display in box.