The preparation continues for Christmas

I heard last night when I went to Sunday Mass that during this time of Advent we are waiting for the second coming of Christ.  Fr Darius said the Jews did not believe Jesus was the messiah just like the way we could not believe Jesus would be coming again.  I thought what Fr Darius said was true.  So today during silent prayer, I prayed "Come Jesus Come!"

I really like Sunday as I do not have to go to Mass and this means I can get up to no good early in the morning until all my ideas got to pot.  LOL  So here is where I am at the moment with my Christmas cake.

I have a dilemma about to do with the side of the cake.  The cake is so elegant and I really do not want to do anything stupid on the side and ruin the cake.  So I ask Dr Marie and get some ideas from her - you see she is a rather classy lady and she would know.  Dr Marie has been on this surface of the earth for nearly 83 years, still going strong, have parties practically everyday, and still working as a GP - imagine!  

So I took the cake with me and brought it to her home this early afternoon and she told me to leave the side of the cake blank. 

That gold leaves on the cake came from Dr Marie.  I gave her some of the Christmas biscuits and while eating the biscuits yesterday, she asked me about the possibility of putting gold leaves on the Christmas cake.  I have a "нет" mentality - said as 'nyeht' - and I would always say no initially regardless!   Don't you think Dr Marie's idea of gold leaves make the cake look like a million dollar cake?  So I will follow her advice and leave the side blank.

While playing in the kitchen, I have tried to make some leaves for Owen's birthday cake for January 2015 and I came up with these leaves.

I believe in having a simple life and use as few tools to make beautiful cakes.  So I dry my sugar craft flowers, leaves and other items on any thing I can find in my kitchen.  You see I dry these leaves on my bundt baking tin to give the leaves some "movement".  There is no need to buy those drying mats you see in cake craft shops or the Internet. The gum paste will not stick to metal objects such as baking tins or silicon baking trays.

In addition, I do not buy any silicon veiners, which cost an arm and a leg, but use a Dresden tool to make the veins on the leaves. This means every leaf is different, like real leaves. 

And now these leaves have dried and I am trying them out for size on the same cake tin which will be used to make Owen's cake.  

I love those large extravagant leaves which seem so outrageous.  Dr Marie thought I should make shamrocks instead of these large vine leaves.  

Do you like the green colour?  

I went to Lakeland and bought their Christmas colours sugar paste at about nearly £5 for a set of five colours.  I then dropped off at Waitrose around the corner and saw they were selling five colours for £2.  So I bought the Waitrose coloured sugar paste and returned the Lakeland colours.  I then mixed the green, yellow and blue sugar paste together and add a little of my Wilton leaf green gel to get the above colour. To turn the sugar paste into gum paste, I added more than a teaspoon of gum tragacanth to the mixed coloured paste as the combined weight of the three colours was 300 grams.  You would normally add one teaspoon of gum tragacanth to 225 grams of roll fondant icing [also known as sugar paste] to get gum paste.

So the moral of this posting is that you do not need to buy everything you see in the cake craft shops and try to use what you already have in your home.  This is my strategy for living a simple life. 

May God bless you on this 'Pink' Sunday!  Let us rejoice and be glad for our Lord is coming with power and might. Amen.