I confess. I have been very unorganised this year. We didn’t even get around to sending any Christmas cards (sorry everybody)

The intention was to make all sorts of homemade goodies for people, mince pies, cakes,………………..

The reality of course is that life got in the way, and I have instead been busy with all sorts of things, leaving little time for making things!

I did finally get round to making my christmas cake the other week, finally marzipanned it last week….. then at 10pm on Christmas Eve Eve (Sunday), I thought I should probably finish it off before our guests arrive, even though I still had some sewing to do, had to go to work the next day….. (hence why I also didn’t write this up until now, when everyone else is still in bed and I am silently sending wake up thoughts so I can open presents!)

So… if you want to know how to marzipan and ice properly.. try here.

Mr M was watching the Great British Bake Off Christmas Masterclass, and so requested that our cake could be iced Mary Berry style with swirly royal icing. The cake was covered with marzipan as normal, then I made royal icing using 2 egg whites left over from some pastry making and got swirly!

To make the decorations I simply coloured some fondant green, and rolled it out fairly thick, then cut out some trees using a small cutter that I have. I then poked a cocktail stick into the base, and then into the cake, to support the tree and keep it upright. Then just a dusting of icing sugar! Job done!

I made two cakes this year, one for us, and one to take into work with me. For the other one, I covered it in fondant, then used a snowflake cutter to cut out a shape for the top, and piped a little bit of royal icing to embellish the snowflake, and around the base of the cake.

Not massively exciting, or fancy….. But simple is good right?

Last year I got a bit creative with fondant and colours: