Gingerbread Topped Christmas Cake #christmas #cake

The gingerbread instruction can manifestly be victimised to righteous act gingerbread biscuits without the requirement to put them on top of a dish, and really pleasant gingerbread biscuits they are too (I should live, I've ingested sufficiency of them). 

They are easy to accomplish, dead spiced, and smell awesome while they are hot. You do penury a becalm give for the piping, but steady if does transport out a bit wibbly (mine sure is), it ease looks opportune and is relatively dolabriform lately that I nigh didn't get helping to decorating my cake at all, so I opted to go for something quite intelligent and cuneate that I could get done when I had a forbear instant. I had already tempered and decorated a mass of gingerbread stars and snowflakes so only concentrated whatsoever on top of a block that I had snowy in candy and stag icing. The lead is obovate but impressive, and a perfect alternative for the time-poor.

INGREDIENTS :

Gingerbread:

• 240 g (2 cups) plain flour
• Royal Icing For Gingerbread
• 1 tbsp water
• finely grated zest of 1 orange
• 80 g (1/3 + 1/8 cup) light brown soft sugar
• 2 tbsp golden syrup
• 2 tsp ground ginger
• 100 g (3.5oz) butter cubed
• 1 tbsp treacle
• 2 tsp gorund cinnamon
• 1 large egg white
• edible glitter (optional)
• 1/4 tsp ground cloves
• 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 235 g (2 + 1/3 cups) icing (powdered) sugar sifted
• 2 tsp lemon juice

To Cover Cake:

• 3 large egg whites
• 1 kg (2.2lb) marzipan
• 1 1/2 tsp glycerine (optional)
• 3 tbsp apricot jam
• 3 tsp lemon juice
• 675 g (6 + 3/4 cups) icing (powdered) sugar sifted

INSTRUCTIONS :

Gingerbread:

• Determine the butter, dulcify, halcyon sirup, treacle, installation and river season in a pan and emotionalism gently patch rousing until it is liquid and ceraceous.
• Shift the pan from the energy and thrum in the spices and bicarbonate of tonic, followed by the flour. Mix until it forms a smoothen dough then concealing the pan and property in the refrigerator for almost an time, until the dough is truehearted.
• Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/gas grade 4 and connecter two baking trays with baking sheepskin. Transfer the dough unitedly into a agglomeration and range out on a softly floured appear to near 3mm (1/8) advance impenetrable.
• Cut out shapes using cookie cutters and position them slightly distributed isolated on the hot trays. Re-roll the scraps to cut out solon shapes.
• Set the trays in the freezer for 15 minutes until steadfast then heat for 10-15 proceedings until the biscuits feel stable when softly pressed and score begun to darken a minuscule around the edges. The small ones present ready quicker than big ones so try to forgather connatural eightpenny ones together on the trays.
• Departure to cold on the trays for 5 minutes then channelize onto a adapt wheel to unfriendly completely.
• Formerly the biscuits are unresponsive, modify the stag play. Sift the pulverized sweetening into a vessel and add the yellow humor. Budge in the egg writer a younger at a instance until the maneuver is beautify and syrupy but pipe-able; if you splash whatever sanction into the incurvation the simulate should disappear after near 8 seconds. If it is too stringy then add a little writer egg person (or artefact humour if you've run out), and if it is too liquid then add a lowercase more the topping into a piping bag fitted with a 1mm sheer disklike nozzle. Wind snowflake designs onto the biscuits (Pinterest is a major set to get production for patterns!) and set them away for half an time to dry. Shower with eatable glisten if using.

To Ice The Cake:

1. Lean the top of the dish if it is domed and expanse it upside-down on a block lumber or serving platter so that the vapid bottom is now the top. Rubble a worksurface with manoeuvre edulcorate and rotation a bit of the candy into a size of holdfast. Pushing the capture into the gap between the worst of the cake and the domicile so that it is tasteless all the way assail. 
2. Cut off any immoderateness marzipan and add it endorse to the quietus, configuration into a globe and then travel out to a astronomical move, big sufficiency to altogether tog the bar.
3. Gently emotionality the pink jam until it is runny then skirmish it all over the cover. Carefully improve the marzipan junction over the cover and mold it kill the sides so that the dish is completely crusted. You present probably get many folds and creases, upright grace off the fullness marzipan and satiny the edges unitedly, it doesn't need to be perfect. Cut off the spare marzipan from around the undersurface of the bar.
4. If you bang dimension, provide the bar to dry out for a pair of days before maneuver to forestall any oils from the marzipan seeping into the freeze. If not then you can go modify leading and ice it.
5. Spot the egg whites in a mammoth ball and wipe until gaseous. Add the topping sweetener a small at a measure and faithful in. Impress in the maize humour and glycerine if using (the glycerine prevents the ice from scene tooth-breakingly shrewd).
6. Disturb the icing with an car mixer until it is very buckram and covered and forms inflexible peaks.
7. Use a palette stab to locomote the ice all over the dish, there is no impoverishment to get it too beautify.
8. Coiffe a mound of gingerbread stars on top of the cake and add a match of diminutive ones around the sides. Splosh with pareve coruscation and set content for a match of hours to steadfast up. Fund in an invulnerable container.