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Christmas Cake Guide: Snowman Cake By The Pink Whisk

Monday 2nd December 2013

Can you feel the excitement? With less than four weeks to go until Christmas, festive cheer is in full swing. Here at Renshaw we’ve been getting giddy with creating baked gifts for friends and family, but the pinnacle of our Christmas has to be the Christmas cake. 

In our previous blog posts we’ve enlisted the help of cake making experts to help you create a delicious Christmas cake so we thought we’d continue the theme. This time we’re delighted to welcome Ruth Clemens of The Pink Whisk to the Renshaw blog. Ruth is going to show you how to take your plain fruit cake and make something a little more jolly and festive than a classic plain white Christmas cake. Don’t panic, you don’t need to be an expert sugarcrafter to pull this off!

You will need:

Instructions:

1. Have you baked and covered cake ready to decorate. Make sure you’ve allowed the white icing to dry out.

2. Roll out the Renshaw Atlantic Blue Ready to Roll Icing to a thickness of 3mm. Smooth down the surface of the icing while it’s still on the work surface, but be careful to make sure it isn’t stuck. If it gets difficult to move just add a little icing sugar under the icing. 

3. Cut out a circle of about 7in diameter. You can use a large pastry cutter for this, or go a bit Blue Peter and make a card template to act as a guide.

AtlanticBlue Circle

4. Brush a little water onto centre of the top of the cake and then lift the blue circle of icing and place it gently into the middle of the cake.

5. Using some Renshaw White Ready to Roll Icing cut out two circles that are about 3½in in diameter. Overlap them slightly on your work surface to create the snowman’s head and body. Then cut away the edge of the head and body to make it match up to the curve of the blue icing cake top.

White Circles

6. Apply a light brush of water to the cake top and then carefully position the snowman head and body. 

White Circles on Cake

7. Take a little Renshaw Jet Black Ready to Roll Icing and cut out the shapes for the snowman’s hat with a sharp knife. Using the same process as with the snowman’s body set them together, cut them to fit the top of the cake and then set them onto the cake with some water to secure.

Snowman Hat Shapes

Snowman Hat Shapes1

8. Now for the nose. Using some Renshaw Orange Ready to Roll Icing, model a carrot by hand. Using a palette knife mark little grooves along the carrot to give texture. Apply to the face.

Carrot nose2

Carrot nose3

9. For the eyes, roll out two small balls of black icing and gently make an indent in each one using the handle of your brush. For the mouth roll out a little tapered sausage of icing. Secure all three to the face.

Face

10. To give some extra detail to the snowman let’s make a little band for his hat out of a thin strip of Renshaw Ruby Red Ready to Roll Icing. Using your palette knife mark out some ruffle lines on the band to give it some texture.

Hat red stripe1

11. Now for a little flourish to really give our creation some character. Roll out a little bit of Renshaw Lincoln Green Ready to Roll Icing and cut out two holly leaves. Then roll three little balls of red icing for the berries. Secure them to the band with a little water.

Holly

12. Every snowman needs a scarf to keep him warm on a winter’s evening. Roll out a sausage of green icing and mark some light indents along it before securing it around the snowman’s neck. If necessary trim to fit.

Scarf1

13. Roll two shorter lengths of icing to make the tails of the scarf. Flatten one end of each and then cut through it with a sharp knife to create some tassels. Make indents along the tails and then position them onto the snowman’s body. Take a small ball of icing and flatten it by hand to create the knot. Secure it in place with some water covering the join between the three parts of the scarf. 

Scarf2

Scarf3

14. For the background cut out some small white stars and place on the blue background. You could use small balls of icing instead to give the effect of a snow flurry.

Stars

15. And to finish trim the cake with your Christmas ribbon.

Finished Cake

Ta da! Mr Snowman is ready for Christmas. We love how Ruth shows that with quality ingredients and a bit of creativity you can create a cake to savour this Christmas.

Happy holidays!