The Finished Boreal Christmas Cake: Marzipan & Royal Icing »

Here are two finished Boreal Christmas Cakes, covered in marzipan and iced with Royal Icing.

Baby Boreal Christmas Cakes. So cute!

I have never before covered a Christmas Cake in marzipan and finished it with Royal Icing. I have never made Royal Icing, that cake-decorating standby that hardens and produces sculputural shapes to make a pastry chef beam with pride. Mastering Royal Icing is a lonely journey for the home cook, my friends, but what is cooking if not a journey into the unknown, ending in ridicule or triumph? The end of the story will soon be revealed, when the cakes are opened and eaten. But first...

...The Marzipan

To make marzipan one must go through a two-staged process; first the almond paste, then the marzipan. (Yes, two stages to bungle.) In the days preceding Christmas I attempted almond paste twice before achieving success. TIP: don’t trust your faulty candy thermometer, but use the familiar soft ball method to judge when the sugar and water syrup is ready. TIP #2: Watch carefully when grinding the almonds and stop before they turn into almond butter—the almonds are ready when the mixture clumps firmly together in the bowl but isn’t yet a smooth paste. The smoothness comes after the ground almonds are beaten into the sugar-water syrup. 

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Almond paste

4 cups (1 L) blanched almonds (I didn't blanch the almonds this time. Next time I will.)

2 cups (480 mL) sugar

1 cup (240 mL) water

6 to 8 T (90-120 mL) cognac, orange juice or kirsch

Grind the almonds very fine, stopping just before the oil separates from the nuts and you have almond butter. Mix sugar and water in a saucepan big enough to accommodate all the ingredients, bring to the boil and cook at high heat until the temperature reaches 240F (120C), the “soft ball” stage. Watch carefully once the thermometer registers 220F (110C); heat rises quickly at this point. Or, ignore the thermometer completely and keep testing the mixture for the soft ball stage at about the 20 mintue point.

Cool the syrup to 110F (43C), add the ground almonds and the cognac or other flavouring and stir vigorously until ingredients are creamy. Refrigerate for 12 hours. Dust a flat surface with icing sugar, turn the almond paste out and knead it as you would bread dough, sprinkling icing sugar as needed to keep it from sticking. Stop kneading when the paste becomes easy to handle but still liable to stick to the counter if you let it sit. The almond paste is perfectly useable (and delicious) at this point, for use in stollen or other Christmas treats. Or you can carry on and make marzipan, slightly sweeter and a little more malleable.

Marzipan

2 egg whites

4 cups (1 L) almond paste, at room temperature

½–¾ cups (125 mL–180 mL) icing sugar

Whip egg whites until they hold stiff peaks and mix into almond paste. Sift the sugar into the mixture and mix thoroughly. Sprinkle icing sugar on the counter and knead the marzipan until it is pliable and yet firm enough to hold its shape.

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On Christmas Day, between family visits, I tackled the marzipan and achieved 75% success; 75% because the almond paste was an oilier product than I would have liked (see TIP #2), so the marzipan was oilier too. Not to worry, with the added icing sugar the marizpan was stiff enough to patch into a covering for one small and one large Christmas cake.

Marzipan. Not as stiff as it could be, but still workable.

 I left the cakes in the fridge overnight so the marzipan would harden, which it did.

Marzipan-covered Christmas cakes, seasoned overnight, ready to be iced.

Today, Boxing Day, we feasted chez Lewis on a brunch of  crepes, latkes, fruit salad, bacon and other delicious Boxing Day things (thank you Lewis!) then came back home for a wrestling match with Royal Icing. First attempt: disaster. I added the icing sugar to the egg whites too fast and spilled about half a cup of cognac into the mix that was already kind of ruined. Pitched it. (Sorry eggs, but we will use the yolks for tomorrow’s Hollandaise.)

This is how the egg whites should look: stiff but not dry.

We went for a ski on the Chadburn Lake trails (groomed!) and I came back refreshed and determined to triumph. I cracked two more eggs and watched the whites slither into the bowl of the heavy duty mixer (yup, no more hand-held nonsense), turned it to speed #12 and whipped the eggs until they were stiff, then added 1/8 tsp (.6ml) cream of tarter and whipped for another 30 seconds. I then added the icing sugar very slowly, ½ cup at a time, at speed # 9, and scraped down the sides of the bowl between each addition. I drizzled in the lemon juice about half-way through, and continued mixing until the icing fell from the beaters into the bowl in a ribbon that held its shape.

 Royal Icing

2 egg whites at room temperature

1/8 tsp (.6 ml) cream of tartar

3 cups (680 ml) sifted icing sugar

2 tbsp (30 ml) lemon juice

Beat egg whites until stiff but not dry. Add cream of tartar and beat another 30 seconds. Add sifted icing sugar 1/2 cup (125 ml) at a time, scraping down the bowl between additions. Add lemon juice once half the icing sugar is mixed in, then add remaining icing sugar 1/2 cup at a time until all the icing sugar is incorporated and the mixture falls from the lifted beater into the bowl in a ribbon that holds its shape. If the icing is too stiff, slowly add more water or lemon juice until a good spreading consistency is reached; if the icing is too wet, add more sifted icing sugar. Ice cakes quickly, because the icing tends to grow hard fairly fast. (Store leftover icing in a tightly covered bowl, and use to spread over ginger cookies or other Christmas treats.) Let the icing harden on the cake for at least 12 hours before cutting for the classic, hard icing-soft marzipan contrast we know and love. To cut, use a sharp knife dipped in hot water.

Makes about 2 cups of icing.

And this is how the finished Royal Icing should look.

Examine closely: this is how the finished icing looks.

I iced the cakes. Though the finished cakes have a certain homey appeal, I can see there is a cake-decorating course in my future. Now the cakes are in the fridge overnight, to allow the icing to harden into a shell.

The cakes are presents, so I can’t post pictures of the interior until they have been cut by the recipients, and that will be soon. So stay tuned. In the meantime, remember: failed almond paste can be turned into Other Things. But failed Royal Icing is just a mess.

 Oh, so cute.

Update on Friday, December 30, 2011 at 02:25PM by Boreal Gourmet

ta da! The finished beauty.