Mrs Frosty

Today

Well, I've actually put the first layer of icing on the Christmas cake. Not what you might call a professional job (how do cake icers get that smooth layer? Perhaps they use a sander when the icing's dry.

Hopefully, when I've covered it with jolly little decorations, no-one will notice the poor foundation, so to speak.

In My Day

Mamma was a great cake-maker for birthdays and Christmas. The Christmas cake would be made several weeks in advance. She would double line the tin and wrap the whole thing in brown paper before putting it in the oven to cook for 4 or 5 hours. I can still remember that slight burnt raisin smell that told us it was done.

Later she would marzipan the cake (she bought this and it was always a bright yellow colour) and a few days before Christmas put on the base icing. This took quite a long time and there were always debates about how much lemon juice in relation to how much glycerine went into the icing.

I think that, like me, Mamma always dreamt of finishing the cake well before Christmas, but what usually happened was that she was frantically icing at 1 in the morning on Christmas eve.

This is how she did it:

First the design was worked out and transferred onto greasproof or tracing paper. Then the paper was laid on the cake and the design pricked out with a pin on the base icing. Mamma mixed up the icing and separated it into bowls, one for each colour. Each bowl was covered with a wet tea towel to keep it workable. Mamma used an icing gun rather than forcing bag (in my own forays, I've found the bag easier, but chacun etc....).

The the real work would start. We would help by finding the right nozzle or cleaning the coloured icing out of one so that she could use it with a different colour. (I can remember the taste of icing mixed with cochineal)

The most magnificent design was conceived by my brother Chris and Mamma gallantly laboured over it until it was done. We hardly dared to cut and eat it.

I wouldn't dare to imagine that mine will come anything close!