Welcome to the Cake Decorators Q&A

what is the best technique to get the perfect smooth finish when covering a fruit cake with marzipan and sugar paste icing

Hello debs12

Fruit cakes have to be prepared before decorating which means all little holes have to be plugged with bits of marzipan and made smooth. Use a pallet knife to smooth the plugs and not your fingers as you could end up making more holes. Once done turn the cake over so the flat side is facing up. You’ll notice now that the cake is not level at the bottom. The cake can either be trimmed and made level or you can roll a long thin sausage of marzipan to go around the base to plug in the gap smoothing it level with the cake with the pallet knife, use a little boiled apricot jam as glue. Trim excess sausage with a pallet knife so it sits flush with the cake and smooth all round. Have a feel around the cake and it should feel pretty level. Before covering, boil some apricot jam with a little vodka to brush a thin coat over the cake for the marzipan to adhere. Roll out the marzipan as you would fondant icing and cover the cake. Let it sit for a couple of days for the marzipan to dry then brush with some vodka and ice as normal. Use the scriber tool or pin to pop any air bubbles and use smoothers for a good finish. If you’re icing the board separately, it’s best done a couple of days ahead. When I use a covered board I decorate the cake on a thin card the same size ( or a size smaller) as the cake. Trim off any excess card so it sits flush to the cake and can be transferred onto the main board, use a little royal icing to stick down the cake and finish the edge off with a piped snail trail or wide ribbon. That’s how I do it, other members may have a different way which I’m sure they will share. x

Would anyone ever cover with white chocolate ganache? Thanks Emma x

Depends on what period of time the cake will be eaten. Fruit cakes last a long time and ganache has a much shorter shelf life, especially white ganache. Adding alcohol to the ganache will give it better keeping property, reduce the cream with however much alcohol used. There are lots of member comments on white ganache if you put in the search box ‘ white chocolate ganache shelf life’. x

I would use madeitwithlove tecnique but I find in australia clients don,t like marzipan so I use two coats of fondant.or we have an almond flavoured fondant I also use as my first coating.