Good Housekeeping UK

The perfect Christmas cake decoration in one hour...

With a gentle dusting of gold, this cakes makes a shining centrepiece

By The Good Housekeeping Cookery TeamPublished: 11 December 2005

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Yields:

Total Time:

1 hr

Ingredients

For the decoration

20 1/2
cm (8in) prepared rich fruit cake (refer to *Before You Start advice in the method section)
2 Tbsp.
sherry or cooled boiled water
A little icing sugar for rolling out
450 g
packet white ready rolled icing

Directions

1. Step 1
  Brush the cake with the sherry or boiled water and put it on a cake board or plate/
2. Step 2
  Dust the rolling pin and worksurface with icing sugar. Roll out the icing into a slightly bigger disc, large enough to cover the cake completely, plus 2.5cm (1in). Lift over the cake and smooth over the top and sides, trying not to make any pleats. Trim base and collect up the scraps.
3. Step 3
  Roll out the scraps of icing thinly and use the cutters to stamp out holly and ivy leaves. Mark veins on the leaves with a flat-bladed knife and carefully curl each piece. Put leaves on non-stick baking parchment for 10min to firm up.
4. Step 4
  Paint the edges of the leaves with a little water, then, using a dry brush, brush with gold lustre dust.
5. Step 5
  Arrange the leaves in the garland on the cake, overlapping slightly. Brush a little water underneath each leaf and press lightly on to the cake.
6. Step 6
  Press tiny scraps of gold leaf along outer edge and arrange candles in a ring in the middle. Wrap ribbon around cake to finish. Store in an airtight container for up to a month. The no-effort bow: wrap wired ribbon around cake, twisting ends over each other to secure. Cut a V shape out of each end.
7. Step 7
  *Before you start: the day before, brush the cake with 4tbsp warmed apricot glaze. Cover the cake with 450g packet ready-rolled marzipan and leave to dry for 24hr.
  
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Per Serving:

Calories: 650
Total carbs: 116 g
Total fat: 20 g
Saturated fat: 10 g

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The Good Housekeeping Cookery Team

An experienced and highly skilled team of food writers, stylists and digital content producers, the Good Housekeeping Cookery Team is a close-knit squad of food obsessives. Cookery Editor Emma Franklin is our resident chilli obsessive and barbecue expert, who spends an inordinate amount of time on holidays poking round the local supermarkets seeking out new and exciting foods. Senior Cookery Writer Alice Shields is a former pastry chef and baking fanatic who loves making bread and would have peanut butter with everything if she could. Her favourite carb is pasta, and our vibrant green spaghetti is her weeknight go-to. Lover of all things savoury, Senior Cookery Writer Grace Evans can be found eating crispy corn and nocellara olives at every opportunity, and will take the cheeseboard over dessert any time (though she cannot resist a slice of tres leches cake). With a wealth of professional kitchen know-how, culinary training and years of experience between them, they are all dedicated to ensuring every Good Housekeeping recipe is the best it can be, so you can trust they’ll work (and if they don’t – we’ll have the answer for why*) every time (*90% of the time the answer is: “buy an separate oven thermometer”!).

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