Christmas Cake 2009 - Icing

So. The cake has been made, fed and marzipanned. Now it was time to move onto icing. I followed the Delia royal icing guidance, which takes about 10 minutes with an electric whisk to get your egg whites and icing sugar looking like this:

I used 4 egg whites and about 550g of icing sugar for my 8 inch diameter cake.

Now it is time for the fun bit. Getting the cake to look snowy Christmassy white. ALWAYS start with the top. It is much harder to blend the sides to the top. Start by dolluping in the centre and then work out towards the edges:

I then used a large plastic pastry brush to cover the sides. And end up with this:

Delia recommends 2 or 3 coats. I have just done my second and it now looks like this:

One more coat and then it will be put away and the final decorations added next weekend. This should make a good centrepiece for the table next weekend when the family arrive. I have to find some use for it. After all. as I have said before, people don't like Christmas cake much. I will be having a slice at some point though and enjoy the weeks of nurturing this cake has had.