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Icing a cake

How to cover a round fruit cake with marzipan and icing.

Points to remember

• Brush a regular fruit cake with warmed apricot jam that has been pushed through a sieve to form an even, thin layer over the entire fruit cake.
• Dust the work surface with icing sugar.
• Sprinkle the marzipan with the icing sugar. Rub a little icing sugar onto your rolling pin.
• Flatten the marzipan using a downwards pressing action. Turn the marzipan 90 degrees while flattening a few times.
• When the marzipan is an inch or 2cm wide, start to roll it with an even pressure until it is the thickness of a £1 coin.
• Using the rolling pin, lift the marzipan and ease it over the cake. Use your hands to smooth the marzipan into place. Trim away the excess marzipan from the base of the cake using a small knife.
• To cover the cake with white icing, spread a thin covering of icing sugar over the work surface.
• Sprinkle the icing and the rolling pin with icing sugar.
• Repeat the same rolling process used for the marzipan until the the icing is about 1/2cm thick.
• Brush the cake with alcohol or cold boiled water to help the icing to stick.
• Lift the icing using the rolling pin.
• Start by laying the icing at the back of the cake and flop it down to the front. Use the flats of your hands to smooth icing over the cake.
• Trim away excess icing with a small sharpe knife. The cake is now ready to decorate.

Useful tips

• Ready-to-roll icing works really well. Use spare icing to decorate the top of the cake.

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More iced cake recipes

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• Stacked star cake
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