Скачать или смотреть How to Make A Christmas Cake (Part 3 - Marzipan)

My cake is ready for a coating of marzipan!
Part 1 (Baking the cake) at    • How to Make A Christmas Cake (Part 1)  
Part 2 (Feeding the cake) at    • How to Make A Christmas Cake (Part 2 - Fee...  
Part 4 (Icing the cake) at    • How to Make A Christmas Cake (Part 4 - Ici...  

To cover an 8″ (20 cm) cake you’ll need about 450 g (1 lb) of marzipan. If you are planning to cover the cake in royal icing it is best to use white marzipan so that the colour of the marzipan doesn’t show through. If you are using fondant icing (as I do) then yellow marzipan gives a nice contrast.

You’ll need:

450 g (1 lb ) marzipan
2-3 tbsp apricot jam
Icing sugar
1 Dust a surface with icing sugar and knead the marzipan until soft and smooth.
2 Roll the marzipan out to a circle of diameter equal to the width of the cake plus two times the thickness of the cake plus a little bit extra. For a square cake the diameter should be twice the thickness plus the length across the diagonal.
3 Melt the apricot jam in the microwave or in a pan. Brush the cake on the top and sides with the melted jam.
4 Using a rolling pin as a helper, lift the marzipan and place it onto the cake. Smooth it down and trim the edges. For a square cake you may need to trim the marzipan at each corner and create a seam.
5 Place the cake in a sealed container for about a week before icing.

Some people marzipan the bottom of the cake too. This is advisable if you are planning to store the cake for several months, but otherwise I feel it can lead to too much of a marzipan taste in the cake.