Wanted: Sugar holly leaves (cake decorating)

pinkteapot

Made some snowball cupcakes yesterday and going to make them again at Christmas. But, I would love some little holly berries and leaves on top. Looked round both our Asda and Sainsbury superstores and NOTHING! Their cake decorating stuff is still just animals, flowers etc. I was sure they'd have Christmassy bits this time of year!

Any suggestions? I'm in Colchester if anyone knows of somewhere local....

shiprob195

I would buy a pack of coloured icing and make your own.
http://www.mysupermarket.co.uk/tesco-price-comparison/Home_Baking/Dr_Oetker_SuperCook_Ready_to_Roll_Coloured_Regal_Ice_Icing_500g.html

It comes in 5 colours....red, green, yellow, blue and black.

Just roll the red out into little balls and cut out the green into leaf shapes.

esmer

I would make it as well. colour the icing, and roll it out, either get a cutter for the holly leaves or cut out of card and use that as a stencil.............

DianneB

I second (third?) making them yourself, instead of buying a special stencil you can get a very good effect by using an ordinary pastry cutter, the crinkly type and cutting oval leaf shapes from the edges of circles - makes sense once you try it!! Good luck.

themull1

Coloured marzipan works well too. With a bit of glitter on the top.

pinkteapot

Thanks for all the replies. Looked again and NONE of our superstores sell the ready-made coloured icing linked to above!!

I wasn't the only one. They had no Christmassy cake decorations at all and there were plenty of people going "What am I going to decorate my Christmas cake with?".

I have icing sugar at home... How hard is to make up coloured icing for rolling and cutting shapes out of from scratch?

I'm a gluten-free baker so I get past that, master the GF cup-cake, then get thwarted at the decorating stage...

There is an indepedent cake shop which sells supplies in Colchester so I'll have to go there on Saturday if I can't make the icing myself (was trying to avoid going into town again before Christmas).

DianneB

Hi again, none of the superstores round here sell ready made coloured icing, you can get in Julian Graves other than that it's specialist cook shops. I generally buy the white ready made and add the colour myself.

KittyKate

Have a look on your local market - ours has a cake decorating stall and bakers stalls which will probably sell you a few?

If not why not nip to poundland and buy christmas jellies and put them on the top instead? In ours you can buy a whole bag of sugary mallowy santas and snowmen for yes, £1

esmer

you can make the sugarpaste roll with icing sugar and marshmallows. Google Marshmallow fondant. I have made it when I couldnt get the sugarpaste, but OMG its sticky............. Here is the one I used.

http://www.cakejournal.com/archives/how-to-make-marshmallow-fondant

Other than that I got ready roll from Tesco, and some from hobbycraft. HTH...

emiff6

pinkteapot wrote: »

I have icing sugar at home... How hard is to make up coloured icing for rolling and cutting shapes out of from scratch? /

It's easy. For just a small quantity, put a couple of teaspoons of eggwhite into a bowl, and beat in icing sugar a spoonful at a time until you have a workable paste that you can knead with your hand without being either too sticky or too dry. Then add food colouring. Roll out onto a board sprinkled with icing sugar and shape as desired. This will dry hard and crisp. For softer icing you need to add a few drops of liquid glycerine (JS sell it).

Don't use the whole egg white unless you want getting on for a pound of icing!