Home Economics 

CHRISTMAS COOKING 

ROYAL ICING ON CHRISTMAS CAKES

Last week our senior students made small Christmas cakes. This week they learned how to prepare the cakes for the Royal icing layer. Students worked with Royal icing to soften it, roll it out to a square shape, the required length and thickness. They used a template to help them carefully cut out the shape in icing, marking the corner sections. Then carefully draped the icing over their cakes. They pressed the icing to form the cube shape, cut away any excess icing and smoothed the icing using a small piece of baking paper. Next week students will be at the exciting stage of decorating their Christmas cakes. 

Ingredients: one jar of apricot jam, one packet of ready to roll white icing.

Instructions how to apply Royal icing to a Christmas cake. 

1. Trim a small piece off the top of the cake then turn the cake over and place it on a board. 
2. Warm apricot jam in a saucepan. Use a brush to spread apricot jam over the cake.

1. On a surface lightly dust with cornflower, roll out Royal icing twice as large as your tin, to cover the top and sides of the cake. Use a template to cut the right amount of icing. Drape icing over a rolling pin and lift icing over the cake. Cut away the excess, use a scraper or small piece of baking paper to rub the surface, sides and corners of the cake until smooth. 
2. Decorate with ribbon, coloured icing using Christmas cutouts or molding into Christmas shapes or adding small cake decorations. Next week we will show you some examples.