DECORATING YOUR OWN CHRISTMAS CAKE | BLOGMAS DAY 4

Hey everyone and happy 4th of December,

I have been doing a lot of baking tutorials recently and rather than tell you how to make something, I wanted just an easy post to write and I was thinking about Christmas traditions and there are a few that my family have, and one of them is that I will always make the Christmas cake and my Mum and I will always decorate it together. It's usually when my Dad isn't home because he works in London during the week and its then a surprise for him at the weekend. So I was actually thinking about the theme of my Christmas cake this year and I am inspired by a Marks and Spencer's one and when I come to decorate the cake I will probably post it on Instagram and Twitter.

I have made the Christmas cake for the last four years and my themes have varied each year and I am always inspired by bakery's cakes and cakes that I see in stores like Marks and Spencer. I have only managed to find the cakes from the last two years but I think my first cake I made is on my Instagram and it had polar bears on it, I think.

I don't make the cake from scratch because I think some people start making it in September to infuse the alcohol, but I might be wrong, and I don't have the time to soak my own fruit and buy all the ingredients. But there are Christmas cake kits which are a lot cheaper and you still feel like you have made the cake yourself because you still have to mix all of the ingredients yourself and you still have to bake it. Now these kits sell out so quickly because they are so popular, but I know a lot of supermarkets and stores will sell these kits. The one I always get is from Waitrose and it only costs £10, which is so cheap. I know you can buy already iced cakes from a supermarket for this price but this is so much more fun and you can make this with your kids until you have to add the alcoholic fruit. If you want to buy the same Christmas cake kit that I buy everywhere then you can buy it here. I am now going to share with you the cakes that I have made for the last two years to give you some ideas if you want to decorate your own cake. Also you could just buy a Christmas cake that just has the icing on it and then decorate it yourselves if you are not really into baking.

Two years ago, my cake was inspired by the film The Snowman and The Snowdog, which I have never watched but I remember seeing a cake like this one and I just wanted to copy it. It was very simple and didn't take long and I think it looked really good in the end, as you will see in the picture below. My Mum and I are really creative and my Mum is so artistic and there are going to be a couple of blog posts in the future which my Mum has made and she is letting me share them with you. This is a more simple design and anyone can make this because it really is just icing rolled into balls, plus you only need two food colourings which are green (although I'm sure the icing was blue to start off with) and orange for the noses. I love this cake and this year I am going to be going for a very simple design which will be all white rather than having to buy different coloured icings which can cost quite a bit.

Now the cake I made last year was a lot more extravagant and was inspired by a cake in a New York bakery and it was also inspired by my favourite Christmas film which is Elf. This cake is two tiers and the bottom tier is the cake from the cake kit and then the top tier was a basic Christmas cake from a supermarket. This cake was so difficult to make and it looks incredible but I didn't want anyone to eat it and ruin the design but the end result was incredible and everyone couldn't believe I made this. My Mum actually made the Elf out of icing and I made the presents and the polar bear and the Christmas tree and I just added decorations that would mean something from the film. Like the Christmas tree is meant to represent when they try to put the star on the tree and it basically falls on top of Buddy the Elf (which is my family's favourite part of the film). I think this took my Mum and I around 4 hours which is a long time and I probably will never spend that much time on a cake ever again but it made a great centrepiece on our sideboard in the conservatory. The skyline behind the Elf is just made of card in case you did want to try and replicate this and the snowflakes were cut out with a snowflake cutter that I got in Lakeland last year. I will be so impressed if any of you try to replicate this because it is so complicated and Kids will love this though because obviously it has the presents and the polar bear teddy and the dolly and its got so many colours in it but it did cost a fortune because I had to buy so much icing but it was worth it.

One of my favourite stores to buy cake decorations from has already been mentioned and that is Lakeland. It's actually not that expensive for cookie cutters and other stencils. Some of the items can be quite expensive but at Christmas time they have so many products which are fairly cheap and are great for bakers or if you want to bake with your kids. I will keep you updated with my 2015 Christmas cake which won't be on my social media until the 16th of December so it might be a bit too late for anyone to replicate although it will just be using white icing so I guess you could buy some beforehand and maybe a snowflake cutter because there will be snowflakes on it and edible glitter. But I don't really know what else I am going to put on it but I will try and post a picture of it as soon as possible in case you do want to decorate it like mine.

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