My year of learning to bake had two objectives: successfully making a first birthday cake and baking my first Christmas cake.
The first birthday cake, back in August, was a little dry but looked good. I used my grandmother's recipe for my first Christmas cake so was optimistic that the cake itself would come out well.
However, as my grandmother used to say, she could make a delicious fruit cake any week of the year but call it a Christmas cake and it would go wrong.
The cake looked fine though I cracked it when I lifted it out of the pan and onto the wire rack to cool. No worries - I could just cover it up with the marzipan and icing.
The next issue was the lack of marzipan in New Zealand shops. I could find almond flavoured icing but that was missing the point. So I was forced to make my own. It was a bit sticky (too much egg) and wouldn't roll out. But I managed to slap it on using a spatula and it came out fine.
More of a challenge was the royal icing. I was so busy worrying that the lack of glycerine would mean that it set rock hard that it didn't occur to me that it wouldn't set at all in the hot and humid weather we've been enduring. Out came the fan and the breeze dried out the top layer at least!
Lifting the cake onto the base plate opened up the original crack and the icing took on the appearance of a glacier hit by global warming. Never mind! The Anglo-Kiwi decorations took attention away from the cake's imperfections and our guests seemed to enjoy it nonetheless. Success!
