Making an Engagement Cake!

Engagement Parties are so much fun but they're even better with a cake! For my final project in Cake class I am doing an Engagement cake for some family friends who got engaged last week!! I really wanted to share this with you - I am very proud of myself!

The Serious Bit
I am making an 8 inch square one-tiered rich fruit cake and coating it with marzipan and sugar paste. It will be on a 10 inch round cake board which is left silver.

The cake itself will be decorated with pastel pink royal icing flowers stencilled around the edges of the top of the cake. In the top right hand corner I will be using sugar paste to make a rose bush out of many different hues of pink and  I will be adding green leaves to make it more realistic. On a diagonal underneath the rose bush I will be piping 'Congratulations' in curly writing using the pink royal icing (to match the stencilled flowers). I will also be putting two golden fondant rings underneath the congratulations.

Around the sides I will be stencilling the pastel pink royal icing flowers that are around the edge of the top of the cake.

Now the serious part is out of the way it's time to get baking!

The Recipe
875g Mixed Dried Fruit
90g Glace Cherries (quartered)
40ml Brandy (optional)
200g Butter
200g Muscovado Sugar
3 eggs
250g Plain Flour
7.5ml Mixed Spice
45g Blanched Almonds (optional)

Method

(1) Mix together the dried fruit, chopped cherries and brandy. Leave to soak for several hours.
(2) Preheat oven to Gas Mark 1/ 140 Celsius
(3) Beat together the sugar and the butter then gradually add the eggs and the flour.
(4) Using a VERY large bowl add the fruit mix, mixed spice and almonds.
(5) Spoon into an 8" Round / 7" Square Tin and make a slight dip in the centre. Tap the tin against the work surface to remove any air trapped. Remember to wrap your tin with newspaper and put greaseproof paper over the top.
(6) Bake for 3 hours. When baked the skewer comes out clean.
(7) Once baked remove from tin and wrap in plastic.


(8) Turn the cake upside down and fill any holes in marzipan. This ensures that the fondant and marzipan will be smooth.
(9) Cover your cake in marzipan and then fondant. Use caster sugar to roll your marzipan out and apricot jam to stick it onto the cake. Use cornflour to roll out the fondant and use heated water to stick it to the marzipan.


(10) Make the royal icing using 200g Icing Sugar and 34ml Egg White Powder mixed in with a tiny bit of water. Use an extremely small amount of pink food dye to colour the icing light pink.
(11) Using a flower stencil, smooth a small amount of royal icing onto the stencil then peel the stencil off the cake. Continue around and on the sides.
(12) With the leftover royal icing stick it all in a piping bag with a small round nozzle and leave it in the fridge.
(13) With fondant (1 large box does the whole cake) take a bit and dye it green. With leaf cutters cut 6 leaves and with heated water stick it onto the cake. Try to stick them in the corner with 2/3 of the leaves "falling" over the side.
(14) Make the rose bush using 4 different colours of pink fondant. This takes great patience and I recommend watching YouTube videos beforehand. I made around 20 roses for my bush.
(15) Use a pinch of fondant for the rings and dye it yellow-gold. I used gold glitter on top to give it a sparkle.
(16) Get the royal icing out of the fridge and pipe "Congratulations" (spell it correctly!).

AND IT IS FINISHED!

Send me in your recreations and I'll see you next time!