How to make a 25th Anniversary fruit cake- The decorating

For the recipe of the fruit cake see this post.

I'd left the fruit cake to mature for a month or so before thinking of putting the marzipan on. Ideally you should put the marzipan on a few days before the icing to let it dry out slightly.

I found this tutorial on the BBC food website really helpful, and I think I will definitely use this technique again. In short this technique basically uses one circle for the top of the cake and and couple of longer strips for the side joined together by overlapping making precise cuts to join, there really is no point in me explaining it as the video is much better and more helpful!

Once your cake has the marzipan layer put it back into the air-tight container until ready to ice.

I used boiled apricot jam and brushed over the marzipan to create a glue for the icing to stick to. For the icing I used ready roll icing and rolled it into a very large round shape, using the rolling pin and plenty of icing sugar to dust to prevent sticking. I could have done with an extra pair of hands here as I did slightly miss place the icing and did have a small tear, I managed to patch it up-but if I wasn't covering the cake with flowers I may have had to do it all again! The icing smoother came in very handy and a bargain in The Range.

I'd spent many hours (days) on Pinterest finding ideas on how to decorate the cake and fell in love with this one:

Via

Obviously I knew it wasn't going to be as magnificent as this one, and also it was only one tier, but I really liked the flower design. I had a small flower cutter already and bought some great cake things from the Range including some 'Wiltons' decorating icing and the board and cake box for a bargain!

I mixed the ready made icing up with icing sugar for a thicker consistency as I wanted the flowers to hold their shape. 

I rolled out the icing a few mm thin and cut loads of flowers out, adding a silver edible decoration to the centre and pinched up the the petals slightly. I did this over a couple of evenings and made about 180 flowers! To protect them I placed them all on baking parchment and in a plastic tub, but they do need the air to dry out before securing the lid. 

Two nights before the party I decorated the cake with the flowers. Beforehand I bought some edible silver shimmer spray which I have noticed in a few baking sections, this didn't come out as dark as I'd expected it to but I am actually pleased with the affect. In certain light it really did look wonderful. 

I mixed some paste up using the ready made icing and water this time and dabbed it to the back of flowers, working my way around the bottom to the top on the cake covering the sides first and then the top. I'd made a small circle plaque on the top purely because I wasn't happy with the finish of the icing as that was one part that I had torn accidentally and piped the number '25' with some of the icing. I was glad to have made so many flowers as spare ones came in handy for the ones that were fragile and broke when pasting onto the cake. 

I was really worried how the cake would make it on the hour journey to Reading, and it did take a big brake in the cake and a big thud against the edge of the box on the front of the cake to ruin part of it. Luckily I had bought some pare flowers and icing with me for repair work literally as the party was starting!!  

I am still thinking I might like something like this for my future wedding cake too but with different sized flowers. 

Annoyingly I don't have good picture of it from the day as I left James in charge of the camera as I was so busy doing other things-unless you count two photos from far away from the slightly worse for wear side that is! If you want a job done well do it yourself ;)