Baking Mad,
Mich Turner
and
Mini Snow Flake Christmas Cakes
I was lucky enough to receive a wonderful Mich Turner cake decorating kit recently from Baking Mad, which is one of my very favourite websites for fabulous inspirational baking recipes. In my kit there was a pack of ready to roll Madagascan Vanilla White Icing, ready to roll finest quality Marzipan, Gold Lustre, Pearl Lustre and Bronze Lustre ~ the makings of a creative decorating set for cakes and bakes. Mich Turner is famous for setting up The Little Venice Cake Company in London where she has created cakes for celebrities and international royalty including Her Majesty The Queen, Madonna, Pierce Brosnan, Sharon and Ozzy Osbourne, Cheryl Cole, Gordon Ramsay and David Beckham. She has recently launched this cake decorating range with Silver Spoon, and it is this fabulous new range that I received from Baking Mad to review.
With the festive season almost upon us, my thoughts have been drifting towards dried fruit, cakes, little bags of chocolate money, selection boxes, puddings, home-made gifts and all the usual jolly, glittery trimmings that are associated with Christmas and the New Year; so when I received this decorating kit I knew exactly what I was going to use it for…….some mini Christmas cakes to give away as gifts. My mum often makes these mini Christmas cakes as gifts and so it was her recipe that I used for these cakes ~ a light but fruity cake mixture that is baked in a muffin tin before being decorated.
I made these cakes a week ago and “fed” them with brandy before decorating them this weekend. The ready to roll marzipan was a dream to work with and smelt strongly of almonds, which we like in our household. I brushed the cakes with warm sieved apricot jam before cutting out the marzipan rounds with a Tala measure! It was the perfect size for the cakes………
……I eased the rolled marzipan over the cakes and gently moulded it over the cakes before using a handle from a rolling pin to ease the marzipan around the sides of the cakes. I let the marzipan dry for about 3 hours before decorating the cakes with the vanilla icing. The ready to roll icing was just as easy to handle as the marzipan and has a subtle but obvious vanilla flavour. It rolled out easily, was smooth and silky, and was very easy to manipulate.
Now comes the part that I love ~ the creative bit, decorating the cakes; I cut out rounds of the rolled icing to just slightly larger than the cakes and eased it over the top of the marzipan…….I painted some of the pearl lustre over the cakes and then sprinkled some edible glitter over the top……now to the snow flakes. I have a “plunger” snow flake cutter in three sizes that I used, you need to roll the icing out fairly thickly so they keep their shape when they are applied to the cakes…….
……….the pearl lustre is a perfect “glue” for the snow flake shapes, and saved me from having to use an egg white, which is what I normally use to “glue” on sugar craft decorations. I also painted some more pearl lustre over the snow flakes and shook a bit more edible glitter over the tops for good measure. I stamped out several sizes of snow flakes as I like random decorations, and I was really pleased how these cakes turned out. The lustres add a professional finish to the cakes and gives a wonderful sheen. I have lots of marzipan and ready roll icing left, and have plans to use them for more festive creations very soon ~ I was very impressed with the quality of these products and the marzipan is high in almonds whilst the icing has a natural vanilla flavour.
I made eight of these cakes in total but only decorated six of them, the other two were devoured by my dad for his elevenses, he loves fruit cake! I plan to dress these cakes in a swathe of cellophane tied with glittery ribbon and add a tag with the ingredients ~ if you make these cakes now and they are “fed” with alcohol daily for at least a week, they will be perfect for Christmas and New Year…..keep them in an airtight tin and don’t forget to adorn them with a band of silvery ribbon around their middles to finish them off…….
With thanks to Baking Mad for sending me this decorating kit to review; I was very impressed with the quality and the flavours of the marzipan and icing were almost home-made ~ the liquid lustres make a stunning and professional finish to all sugar craft decorating and I certainly added a magical snowy sheen to my Christmas cakes as you can see from the photos.
The link for the cake recipe is below, it is the same cake mixture that was used for my Wee Whisky Doused Hogmanay Dundee Cakes, but these are baked in a muffin tin; allow 15 to 20 minutes less baking time.
Marie says
Excellent job Karen. They look beautiful! Not hard to do when you have the right things to work with, but even so . . . you have a real talent for making things look wonderful! xxoo
Kate@whatkatebaked says
Such, such pretty cakes Karen and so very, very festive! Where did you buy the plungers from?
Heather says
Mmm, these look SO good and so festive! Wouldnt these be so pretty at a winter wedding? i think so!~
Liz says
They are gorgeous! So pretty!
Liz @ Shortbread & Ginger
Working london mummy says
stunning stunning little cakes. such a good idea!
thelittleloaf says
Your cakes look so pretty – I LOVE the snowflakes…where did you get the cutters from?
Bee happy says
These icle cakes are so amazing they would look great on the christmas table 🙂
Bee happy x
Have a delicious day!
baking elements says
Aren't they gorgoeus! I am mad about baking mad and mitch turner as well
Sadia
smellslikesalad says
Oh, Oh, Oh and Merry Christmas!
laurie says
what beautiful cakes,, I'm so glad everything worked out,
A Trifle Rushed says
Karen, thet are so sweet. A muffin tin is a great idea, I've used a small baked bean tin in the past, but they now have a lip which is quite awkward, so I think (if you don't mind) I will borrow your idea. Thanks for the inspiration:-) Jude x
Chele says
Mich Turner is such an inspiration isn't she. Love her cakes and your versions are just as spectacular. Well done!
Laura@ howtocookgoodfood says
These little cakes look too good to eat. I love the snowflake patterns and the glitter dust is the piece de resistance……what a great idea!
Kentish Keg-Meg says
Such ideal gifts. You have fired me with enthusiasm. I will definately make these.
Susan's blog says
Very nice and lovely and festive too, would make a lovely table centre piece on a buffet. x
Choclette says
These are so pretty Karen and would be lovely to include in a min Christmas hamper – what fun. I adore marzipan and you get more per cake bite on your mini cakes than you do on a big one, so I'll have one of yours please.
MissCakeBaker says
These are just gorgeous! You've inspired to get cooking some mini christmas cakes.
Emma says
These cakes look amazing Karen! x
Heidi Roberts says
Karen they are gorgeous!! So much to live up to. Looking forward to meeting you on the 18th!!
Dom at Belleau Kitchen says
They are adorable. What a lovely idea!! I think your decorating skills are excellent too! Can't wait to meet you!!!
Brownieville Girl says
So pretty! Hope you have a wonderful time at the meet up.
I thought you might be interested in this http://purplechocolathome.blogspot.com/2011/11/make-your-blog-permanent-create-book.html
after your loss of blog the other day.
Hannah says
Oh cute!
I've been thinking about individual cakes this year but ran out of time to faff about so plumped for the traditional size again.
What did any of us do with our Christmas cakes before edible glitter was invented? I can't remember!
Aimée @ Food: Je t'Aimée says
Absolutely stunning, Karen! What beautiful, picture-perfect cakes! They belong in a shop! xo
Francesca says
Love your cakes. Where did you get your snowflake cutter from??
peasepudding says
Hi Karen, great to find your blog, I just love these adorable cakes. I struggle even to find 'real' marzipan in NZ and when I do find it, it tends to be eaten before I get it on the cakes. When back in the UK I always cake decorating cutters and have mini snowflakes.
peasepudding says
Hi Karen, great to find your blog, I just love these adorable cakes. I struggle even to find 'real' marzipan in NZ and when I do find it, it tends to be eaten before I get it on the cakes. When back in the UK I always cake decorating cutters and have mini snowflakes.
Laura says
I spotted these at the event, they looked lovely and I like the liquid lustre, that sounds really useful.
Lin says
Hi When I tried the link to your recipe it wouldn’t work?
Karen says
There has been a problem with that google site where my recipes used to be stored for ages, the recipe is basically this one: Wee Whisky Doused Hogmanay Dundee Cakes http://lavenderandlovage.blogspot.com/2011/11/making-winter-baking-with-mum-and-wee.html but with the ready roll icing and decorations as you can see in this post added! Hope that helps!
Eleanor Wigmore says
The cakes look beautiful!
KIERAN WALSH says
missed this at xmas, will add this to 2013 xmas bake