How to make: Our Snowman Christmas cake

60-70 mins

Method
Firstly you will need to measure across the top and sides of your ready-made fruit cake using a piece of string or cotton - this will later act as a guide for when you are rolling out your marzipan and fondant icing. Once measured, keep to one side.

Place 3 tablespoons of your apricot jam or marmalade in a small saucepan with 2 teaspoons of water. Heat mixture on a low temperature until warm and runny.

Generously brush your cake with your warm mixture.

On a clean service sprinkle a little icing sugar. Roll your marzipan into a ball with your hands and then press down so that you are left with a rough circular shape. Roll out the marzipan with your rolling pin. Use your piece of string to check that your marzipan is big enough to cover your cake.
Top Tip
Roll out your marzipan on clingfilm so that you can lift the marzipan up easily and place it on the cake

• Knead your fondant for 2 minutes or until it has softened.
• At this point you can colour your fondant if you wish to, we have coloured ours with a dark blue food colouring to look like the night sky.

TOP TIP - Be sure to use gel or paste food colouring, do not use a liquid food colouring, as this will affect the consistency of the fondant.

• Use your hands to roll your fondant into a ball, then flatten it into a round disc shape.
• Remove your cake from its tin and lightly brush the marzipan with some boiled water, this will act as a glue and allow the fondant icing to stick to the cake.
• Lightly dust your rolling pin with icing sugar.
• Roll out your fondant icing until it is about 1/4 inch thick. Turn the icing 180° every now and then whilst you are rolling to help keep it even and round.

Top Tip
Be sure to use gel or paste food colouring, do NOT use a liquid food colouring, as this will affect the consistency of the fondant!

Once the fondant icing on the cake is smooth, use a small knife or even a pizza cutter to cut away any excess icing at the bottom of the cake – try to cut as close to the bottom of the cake as possible.

Now for the fun bit! We have chosen to decorate our cake to look like London's skyline with the Snowman characters flying above. We have used biscuits from our London and Snowman collections. You can bake your own biscuits following our simple guide. Take your royal icing and pipe a small amount on to the back of each biscuit. Then stick the biscuits to the side of the cake. We sprinkled some sugar across the top of the cake to create the effect of snow. Finally, we have inserted cake pops in to the top of the cake so that the Snowman characters look as if they are flying!

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