O Christmas tree, o Christmas tree...

...how lovely are thy branches? Well these branches are made of icing, so they will taste infinitely better than a real tree! There are many ways to top a Christmas cake with icing, from piping on some snowflake patterns using a thin nozzle and white icing, (simply icing sugar and a little water) or topping the whole cake with an elaborate display of handmade fondant Christmas flowers. I like to think this tree is a nice happy middle ground, that any busy mum or dad can achieve given half an hour and the will to succeed!

I usually make a Christmas cake, but I am unfortunately a little late (say two months!) to share my recipe with you and it occurred to me that making your chistmas cake look festive, can be nearly as important as the taste (but not quite, so I really hope you've been sharing the brandy).

This Christmas tree is really easy to do and looks very affective as a centre to a cake. You could even make some presents for underneath the tree. Concerned about the presents being tricky? Do you remember how poor your gift wrapping is nearing midnight on Christmas Eve, after a medicinal tipple to help with the back pain and paper cuts? Suddenly your iced presents are not malformed, they are accurate!

Lets delve in. You will need...

Green fondant icing

Brown fondant icing

Embellishments to decorate (anything sparkly usually works great, you could use sugar pearls as I did for the baubles or anything else edible)

Nail scissors

A plastic or glass beaker

Margarine (about an ounce)

STEP ONE

Rub a tiny bit of margarine the palm of your hands so the icing won't stick, but don't use to much your icing will be shining in a bad way!

STEP TWO

Knead the green fondant in your hands to soften it. Then mould it into a cone shape.

STEP THREE

Using the brown fondant make a disk shape the size of the base of your green cone and about 1cm high.

STEP FOUR

Place the green cone on top of the brown disk and mount gently on the slightly greased upturned beaker.

STEP FIVE

Start snipping the icing with the nail scissors, the scissors need to be angled upwards with the curved part of the blade nearest to the fondant.

STEP SIX

Rotate the beaker around until you have encircled the tree with cuts, then move down, making another row around the tree. Repeat until you reach the bottom.

STEP SEVEN

Let it sit for a 30 mins or until firm.

STEP EIGHT

Cover with embellishments. I have used shimmer edible green dust on the tree and then added the sugar Pearls as baubles and a little yellow icing star with gold edible shimmer dust on, to put on the top.

You can make it smaller if you want, just use less icing and don't cut as deep. It's best to just have a play, if you go wrong...just start again! No one will ever know.

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