Make a Caravan Christmas Cake
What better way for caravanners to celebrate the festive season than with this fabulous confection?
Celebrate the caravanning yuletide with this cleverly constructed confection!
THIS MUST BE the most impressive Christmas bake we’ve ever seen! Combining traditional fruitcake with layers of marzipan and Renshaw Ready to Roll Icing, you can create your own masterpiece. Just follow these step-by-step instructions from cake artist Lucy Bruns, to make this festive caravan camping scene.
1
Use the caravan template (download from https://blog. hobbycraft.co.uk/how-to-makea-caravan-christmas-cake) to cut out the basic shape from the fruitcake.
2
Measure the cake’s depth; roll out a marzipan strip cut to the same depth and long enough to wrap around the whole cake – you might need two strips.
3
Brush the side of the cake with warmed, sieved apricot jam, then stick the strip(s) in place. Trim away any excess. Roll out the rest of the marzipan and cut two shapes slightly bigger (5mm) than the template – cover the top of the cake with one piece, then flip the cake over to cover the other side. Use an icing smoother to smooth the marzipan all over the top and sides.
4
Leave the fruitcake on a piece of greaseproof paper for three days, flipping it over every day to allow the marzipan layer to harden.
5
Roll out your gingerbread dough on a floured surface to a thickness of 5mm. Cut out one front piece, then flip the template to cut the reverse side. Remove the door and window from the front piece. Using the remaining dough, cut out a door piece and two wheels.
6
Put the pieces on baking trays lined with non-stick paper and chill in the fridge for half an hour before baking. Bake at 180°C for 15-20 minutes for the larger pieces – less for the smaller pieces. If you find the gingerbread has expanded in the oven, particularly the window and door apertures, use the template to trim the pieces with a sharp knife while they are still hot from the oven. Leave all of the pieces to cool on a rack before decorating.
7
While the gingerbread is cooling, it’s time to make the trees. Take the non-stick paper and cut out a 10” circle. Cut this in half so you have two semicircles. Curl each semicircle into a cone and secure with tape on the outside of the cone. Cutting circles of different sizes gives you trees of different sizes, if you prefer.
8
Melt 200g of green Candy Melts and stir in 100g of puffed rice cereal, making sure it is well coated. Fill each cone with the green rice mixture, ensuring that you pack in as much as possible to eliminate any gaps in your tree. Stand the cones upright in cups or glasses and put in the fridge for half an hour to set.
9
Unroll each cone carefully to reveal your tree. Decorate with sweets or sprinkles.
10
To make a wreath for the caravan door, stand a piping nozzle on a piece of non-stick paper and arrange a dessert spoonful of the rice mixture around it in a wreath shape. Decorate this as desired with sprinkles.
11
To decorate gingerbread panels, roll out the duck egg blue icing approximately 3mm thick and lay over the front piece. Trim to fit the top third of the panel and stick to the gingerbread by brushing the back of the icing with a little cooled, boiled water. Roll out the white icing to make a strip across the middle of the panel, with duck egg blue at the bottom. Score lines in the white icing using a ruler and Dresden tool or a blunt knife. Cover back panel and door with the blue icing, and wheels with circles of black icing.
12
Affix the gingerbread panel to the cake with a thin layer of royal icing.
13
It’s now time to stand the caravan in its upright position. Stick the back panel of gingerbread on the reverse of the cake. You can affix the cake directly to your cake board with royal icing as it is, or you can elevate the cake slightly, so that it looks like it is resting on the wheels. Use a block of polystyrene the size and shape of a pack of playing cards and glue this to the cake board, then cover it with melted white Candy Melts. Stand the cake upright on this mount and insert four bamboo skewers into the top of the cake, straight down into the polystyrene, to hold it in place. Trim the skewers so they are flush with the marzipan.
14
Use more royal icing to affix the wheels in place and attach the wreath to the door. Use two cocktail sticks pushed into the cake behind the door to make the door stand slightly open, and fix everything in place with plenty of royal icing.
15
Roll out a strip of duck egg blue icing that is long enough to cover the rounded edge of the caravan. Stick the strip to the marzipan with cooled, boiled water and then trim it to fit.
16
Mix together a pea-sized amount of teddy bear brown icing with the same of chocolate brown, until the two colours are marbled together. Shape into a short tree trunk and affix to the base of one tree with green Candy Melts. Stick this tree to the top of the caravan. Roll a very long, thin sausage of grey icing to make the trim – this will hide the joins between the duck egg blue and the white.
17
Roll a third of the white flower paste 3mm thick, take the bark impression mat and use the rolling pin to press it into the icing, to give it a woodgrain appearance. Cut fence panels using the picket fence cutter and leave the panels aside to harden for two to three hours, or overnight.
18
To make your campfire, use pretzel sticks stuck together in a pile with royal icing. Use scissors to cut out yellow/orange/red ‘flames’ from the Fizzy Belt sweets.
19
Cut a length of baker’s twine and drape this around the top of the caravan for the string of fairy lights. Fix the twine in place with dots of royal icing. Roll out some tiny lightbulbs from the coloured icing and attach to the twine at regular intervals, again using royal icing. Add a bow of red icing to the door wreath.
20
Cover the entire cake board with white Candy Melts for snow and fix all of the elements in place – the campfire, fence panels and trees. You can further enhance your scene by adding some icing ‘presents’ under the tree, and perhaps a furry friend! n Our thanks to cake artist Lucy Bruns, who made this cake for Hobbycraft