Amu's Crazy World...: December 2008

Maria and Rosie of Sweet & Simple Bakes have again come up with a beautiful recipe and have stimulated many a creative mind to put their thoughts into action and make a regular bake an extraordinary and memorable one...As part of their November Bake Off they have asked fellow bloggers to partake in baking a sumptuous Chocolate Christmas Cake...

Here is my effort of this beautiful cake...A modest effort to make something wonderful to look extra special....

Here's how it started...firstly with the Fruit Mince (sometimes called as mince meat)...I adopted the recipe given by them here....I made this fruit mince 2 days in advance in order to let the fruit develop more flavour.

Then Proceeded in making the cake...The recipe for the cake is given at S&SB here...

I dont have to put up the recipe as it is very clearly explained by the girls at S&SB. All I will do is put up pictures of the step by step procedure I have followed for the cake.

1. All Ready to go into the Oven.

2. Perfectly baked and cooling down rapidly.

3. Ready to be decorated.

4. I used store bought ready to use Marzipan (I'm not a huge fondant enthusiast) to decorate the cake. I then proceeded colouring the marzipan using liquid food colours making sure I wore gloves while working in the colours to avoid staining my hands.

Make sure you keep the marzipan wrapped in order to prevent it from drying out completely.

5. Then covered the top part of the cooled cake with plain uncoloured marzipan. (Roll the marzipan on a flat surface and dust the surface with Icing Sugar if needed in order to prevent it from sticking).

6. Using mini cookie cutters,I cut out desired shapes out of the different coloured marzipan.

7. Then went on decorating the cake with the coloured marzipan bits. I also used silver coated sugar balls to essentuate the look of the different shapes.

8. A close-up of the marzipan decorations.

9. To Finish off the decoration with a bit of classy touch is a nice wide Satin Ribbon in magenta to give that extra bit of Oumph.

10. And here it is...one of my best creations to date...(thanks to the ideas given by Rosie and Maria)

It has been an exciting experience working on this bake. My husband was so impressed that he decided to take it to his staff Christmas Party and guess what it was a huge success at the party. And I am truly happy for it.