Ah here, you want jam on it...

Ah here, you want jam on it…

Today I called in to Blister 2 and explained my needs. Could she lend me a rolling pin? What do you mean; you don’t have a rolling pin? What else don’t you have? Have you a pastry brush to put the jam on the cake even? No I don’t have a pastry brush. Well that’s what you’re getting for Christmas – what else don’t you have? Well I don’t have a vegetable brush either, I said. Bet you don’t even have a bread knife, she said. Well I definitely don’t have a bread bin I said.  Or a wooden spoon, which is what someone told me is ESSENTIAL to every kitchen…What! She shrieked.

By now Niece 2, a witness to all this, is shrieking with laughter. 

What would I use a pastry brush FOR? I ask.   I don’t make pastry. God you’re hopeless, she said.

Not at all, it’s completely logical to me; Plan B; buy packets of ready made marzipan, packets of ready made roll –out icing (no water to be added) icing sugar and more jam to stick it all to my new cake.

I left with a rolling pin and four cake ornaments; a Santa, a fir tree, a “Merry Christmas” sign and a holly leaf. Bring it on!

Nothing would do my lovely Bridge partner but that I bring the cake to her house to be decorated with her help. (Cake decoration under the supervision of a responsible adult?)

Ok - D Day!  I stand amazed. Educated. In awe.  She heated up the jam in a Bain Marie, cut out grease proof paper to the exact measurements of the cake sides/top, and spent ages rolling out the ready made marzo (she learned something too – that there was such a thing as ready made anything) and in one hour the cake was painted with warm sifted apricot jam using a regulation pastry brush and the marzo was applied – and didn’t fall off. Apparently “The Cake” must now reside on her sideboard for a few days while today’s paint job dries.  (Is this what Michelangelo had to do with the Sistine Chapel?  Just askin’)

 In a few days Step 3; the ready roll white icing can be overlaid. According to Bridge Partner, four ornaments are perfect for a square cake- one at each corner. So all will be shimmery and symmetry… I’ll put a photo (with credits of course) on the blog when The Creation is complete. Then I’m going to eat it. Well ok I’ll try to restrain myself till Christmas - Eve. But I’m not making any promises…Or maybe I should break a bottle of champagne over it and launch it…like the Titanic…