ALTERNATIVE YULE CAKE: A LEAVES
AND BERRIES “WREATH CAKE”
by Gillian Monks
Bake a cake (preferably fruit), in a round tin or, more realistically, in
a savrin mould (round but with the middle cut out).
Cover in stiff, thick, pale green glace icing.
A few days previously, colour some marzipan (either homemade or ready done),
with orange, yellow, red and a dark and a pale green.
Oranges: Break off small knobs of the orange marzipan, roll
into balls and then gently roll over the face of a grater to give your “orange
fruit” the appearance of pores on an orange peel.
Lemons: Repeat with half the yellow marzipan, only roll ball
to a slight point at both ends and then gently roll over the grater as before
Apples: Break all the red marzipan and a little of the darker
green marzipan up into balls and roll until round and smooth. Gently press
a clove into each to make apple stalks.
Leaves: Roll out remaining yellow, light and dark green marzipan
to about 1/8th inch thick. Using either cutters or a small sharp knife, free-hand,
cut out a good quantity and selection of leaves. (Note; in sets of small cutters,
you often find a little holly leaf cutter, about 1 inch long, and the cutter
which is intended to represent spades, as in a deck of cards, makes an excellent
ivy leaf!).
Leave marzipan fruits and leaves on baking trays, somewhere clean but warm
and dry so that they have a chance to dry out.
Before icing on cake has had time to set, arrange fruits and leaves around
outer edge of cake, (if note using a ring-shaped one), so that they resemble
a wreath, the leaves on first and then the fruits “nestling” among
them. Finally, dust with icing sugar.
