Rocky robin cake
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Rocky robin cake

Get creative with your Christmas cake icing - these robins are super cute and really easy to model

Difficulty and servings

Moderately easy

Cuts into 10 slices

Preparation and cooking times

Preparation time

Prep 1 hr 10 mins

Method

  1. Sit the cake on a large board or flat serving plate. Brush a little of the jam over the cake. Dust a clean surface with a little icing sugar, then roll out the marzipan until big enough to cover the cake (use string to help you measure). Carefully lift the marzipan onto the cake, pat down to cover smoothly and trim any excess off the bottom. Brush all over again with more jam.
  2. Knead 1kg white icing until smooth, then roll out on an icing sugar-dusted surface until a little bigger than the marzipan size. Carefully lift onto the cake, partially pat down the sides to smooth and stick, allow the rest to stick in folds, or tease into shape with your fingers (step A). Trim any ragged edges.
  3. For the robins, roll 3 walnut-size balls from some of the remaining white icing. Halve the icing that is left. Knead brown colouring into 1 half to give a rich colour, wrap well - this will be the branch. Divide the other half into 3 pieces, and colour 1 red, 1 pale brown and 1 green.
  4. Re-dust the work surface, pinch off 3 marble-size balls of red icing and roll each into a teardrop shape for the breast. Use a cocktail stick to add texture, then stick 1 onto each robin - brush a little water onto the icing to help it stick. As you stick it, flatten the base of the ball slightly so that the robins stand up.
  5. Divide the pale brown icing into 3 balls and roll each into an oval shape, then pinch 1 end of each into a gentle point (step B). Stick onto the robins so that the point is the head, and trim the tail if you need to. Poke a clove into each brown tip to make a little beak. Pull the round bit off the end of 6 cloves to leave spiky ends, and poke into robins to make feet. Use black writing icing to add eyes (step C).
  6. Roll most of the dark brown icing into a long branch and attach to the cake with a little more water or jam. Roll smaller branches from the remaining dark brown icing. Pinch leaves from the green icing and attach. Add the robins and enjoy.

PER SERVING

1381 kcalories, protein 12g, carbohydrate 251g, fat 42 g, saturated fat 15g, fibre 7g, sugar 233g, salt 0.86 g

Recipe from Good Food magazine, December 2010.

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Latest comments and suggestions

  • Binder photo My_calcifer

    16 November 2010

    My_calcifer rated and commented on this recipe

    5 stars

    Looks so beautiful !

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  • Binder photo charlyjustlovescake

    24 November 2010

    charlyjustlovescake commented on this recipe

    These look very tricky!

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  • Binder photo porge

    26 November 2010

    porge commented on this recipe

    "food colouring" is very misleading - if you use the liquid food colouring you'll be in trouble! the sugarpaste (icing) will just go all gooey, very sticky and impossible to work with. I think they probably mean sugarpaste colouring which is available at specialist shops.

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  • Binder photo ee$h@

    28 November 2010

    ee$h@ commented on this recipe

    what do u call the cream which is in white colour?

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  • Binder photo JANEMF

    05 December 2010

    JANEMF commented on this recipe

    Would like to make the Rocky Robin Christmas cake, but having problems getting hold of brown food coloring, any one help? live in the Kendal area Cumbria

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  • Binder photo carol

    05 December 2010

    carol commented on this recipe

    This looks lovely. Might take my cake to France and try this with my two grandchildren for chrisrmas. Thank you

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  • Binder photo Emski

    07 December 2010

    Emski rated and commented on this recipe

    5 stars

    JANEMF, I couldn't find brown food colouring either, so I kneaded some cocoa powder into the white icing instead. Looks just as good!

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  • Binder photo Caroline

    09 December 2010

    Caroline rated and commented on this recipe

    5 stars

    I've just made two of these for Christmas - they look fantastic and were very easy to make. I bought the brown food colouring from Squires online http://www.squires-shop.com/ibf/index.php?p=home&loc=GB

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  • Binder photo willowthe bunnybbc

    14 December 2010

    willowthe bunnybbc commented on this recipe

    You can mix brown by combinig blue and red to make a dark purple then gradually add yellow, yes it does become sticky but will firm up again if left for a while.

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  • Binder photo frolo743

    20 December 2010

    frolo743 commented on this recipe

    This looks very cute. I am going to use ready-coloured sugar paste - very easy to use & comes in a multitude of colours.

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  • Binder photo Ann

    22 December 2010

    Ann rated and commented on this recipe

    5 stars

    Brilliant - the cake looks lovely, just like the picture but I cheated and bought ready coloured sugar paste from Hobbycraft. Have also moulded some more robins for my chocolate log!

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  • Binder photo Jennifer T

    22 December 2010

    Jennifer T rated and commented on this recipe

    3 stars

    Just made this with my kids - which was quite a lot of fun. I used ready rolled icing which made it really easy to cover the cake and then pinch the folds at the bottom. Brown colouring was made by mixing red and green and a bit of yellow we had. It all got a bit runny/messy but adding icing sugar to the mix firmed things up ok. We now have 3 very dopey looking robins sitting on our cake - but they're kinda cute :)

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  • Binder photo Allie

    24 December 2010

    Allie rated and commented on this recipe

    3 stars

    I've been making this for the last few days. On advice I covered it with marzipan the day before to allow it to dry - apparently this stops the icing from slipping. I used the Regal-Ice ready rolled icing which was perfect, and the pre-coloured brown icing for the branch. Couldn't get red pre-coloured (sold out) but I got the gel and coloured white icing myself - messy but worth it. At first the icing was melting a bit, but that was because the room was too hot - I opened the window (put on my coat) and it got much easier. For speed I used green icing pens to draw on the leaves, and chocolate stars for the feet and beak.. I didn't like the idea of cloves. Finally I finished it off with tiny white icing snowflakes from Tesco.. Tricky but so worth it - it's my first attempt at anything like this. Would have given it more stars if they had mentioned that liquid food colouring wouldn't work - i had to rush to Hobbycraft yesterday to get the other kind.

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  • Binder photo Stephthecook

    27 December 2010

    Stephthecook rated and commented on this recipe

    4 stars

    The cake was easy to make as was putting on the marzipan and icing. The tip on using cocoa for brown colour was great as there aren't always specialist shops in all areas of the country!!! It was a bit dry but made very realistic trunk and branches. Food colouring did make the red and green bits too wet so would in future buy already coloured icing. Looked cute and went down brilliantly - the cake tasted gorgeous!

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  • Binder photo dwynwyn

    02 February 2011

    dwynwyn commented on this recipe

    I used Green & Red food colouring to get the brown colour. I had to have plenty of icing sugar on hand to get the fondant back to the right texture and it was a difficult balance to get the right shade of colour with the right texture to the icing, but I managed it. I think in the future, I'm going to follow the tips here though - Hobbycraft for my sugar paste, I'll remember that - thanks! My sculpting wasn't the best and my other half said the robin's looked more like mice, but luckily my mother-in-law is more polite and thought they were lovely!

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  • Binder photo dwynwyn

    02 February 2011

    dwynwyn rated this recipe

    5 stars

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  • Binder photo Markswifwey

    22 December 2011

    Markswifwey commented on this recipe

    trying this tonight -- wish me luck!

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  • Binder photo Markswifwey

    22 December 2011

    Markswifwey commented on this recipe

    trying this tonight -- wish me luck!

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  • Binder photo Markswifwey

    22 December 2011

    Markswifwey commented on this recipe

    trying this tonight -- wish me luck!

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  • Binder photo Crazy Cupcake Girl

    26 December 2011

    Crazy Cupcake Girl rated and commented on this recipe

    5 stars

    I think this recipe is beautiful, it looks so eleagant and I am able to alter it if needs be. I used coco to colour the brown icing which gave it a nice marble effect as I coyuld not find brown food colouring. But overall a great recipe!!! :)

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Difficulty and servings

Moderately easy

Cuts into 10 slices

Preparation and cooking times

Preparation time

Prep 1 hr 10 mins

Ingredients

  • 1 x 20cm round or 18cm square Christmas cake (see 'Goes well with', below)
  • 4 tbsp raspberry or apricot jam, warmed and sieved
  • icing sugar , for dusting
  • 500g pack marzipan
  • 1.3kg ready-to-roll white icing
  • brown, green and red food colouring
  • 9 whole cloves
  • black writing icing
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PER SERVING

1381 kcalories, protein 12g, carbohydrate 251g, fat 42 g, saturated fat 15g, fibre 7g, sugar 233g, salt 0.86 g

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