There was a moment during this year's decorating of the Christmas cake when I turned to Maud's mother and said "Tu sais que ce n'est pas un tradition Australien?" ("You know that this is not an Australian tradition?"). Somehow this crazy, exhausting, messy ritual has become an unmissable part of our Christmas celebrations and our adherence to it might have suggested that we have been doing so for our entire lives. In truth, we've only been decorating the cake for the past three years, with varying degrees of success. I've written before about the history of my grandmother's Christmas cake, and last year I documented the newly emerging freestyle approach to decoration, and this year we introduced a new tradition: my mother asked Josette to look around Nancy to find something suitably French to adorn the cake.
As he was last year, Tim was enlisted
to roll out the kilogram chunks of
marzipan and fondant.
As you can see, it is rather hard
work.
Nicky was enlisted to brush the cake
with egg white (which helps the icing
stick to the cake)...
...but it is not terribly tasty as Elliot
soon discovered.
He much preferred eating the off-cuts
of marzipan.
Word to the wise: if one lets one's
children eat marzipan, they apparently
go completely crazy.
And suffer a strange facial rictus...
...that endures for a disturbingly long time.
Tim, meanwhile, was busy assuring
a perfectly smooth surface to the cake.
We all decided that he might find a
future in baking if he ever gives up
banking. It would, after all, only
require the removal of an 'n' from
his business card.
The children were rather irritatingly keen to get
started on the cake.
Tiger had the honour of sticking on the special
decorative leaves that had been purchased specially
for this year's cake...
...but Elliot helped.
Then they all went to town with the icing 'stamps'.
Max supervised.
Tiger observed.
And then the great painting adventure began!
Last year, the rather expensive edible powders went
absolutely everywhere. This year, Granny went out
and purchased a new set which included greens, golds,
and three different shades of red. I decided that we
should place them on plates in measured quantities
to prevent the Great Powder Explosion of 2010 having
a repeat performance.
Elliot worked very hard on his Christmas tree.
As this photo testifies, they were all at work at once
on the cake. Though there were occasional spats, it
always amazes me how well these cousins get on even
when fighting for space.
Three generations working on the cake.
"Er, maman, je pense que j'ai oublié mes
croquis préparatoires..."
"Um, mummy, I'm not entirely sure what to do with
this bit..."
As this photo indicates, I did very
little indeed but watched on with
great interest (and very messy hair).
I love the look of concentration on Tiger's face in
this photo.
And this I included simply because it shows Granny
and Francis entertaining Hugo in the background.
(Though Max is clearly upset about something)
Again, though this is not a very good photo, I have
included it because it is one of the only shots that
features Maud and little Hugo.
Tiger was delighted to add the snowman ornament
which was a new addition to the cake collection this year.
This was Max's side. Obviously it features a tree,
a star, and, um, a yellow triangle. In fairness, the
fact that we had done the hard-slog of the Christmas
windows etc before arriving to do the cake meant
that the children were absolutely drained by this point
so they were not able to finish the cake as they might
have wished.
This is Elliot's side: I think he shows a remarkably
admirable restraint in his use of the green powder
for the tree.
This is Tiger's side: she started to highlight parts
of the snowflakes with one of the edible-ink pens
but never got to finish. She also spent some time
adding the silver cachous in a ring but I have no
idea what her final 'vision' was...
This is the ornament which Josette brought all the
way from France for us...
...and here is the semi-finished cake. Though it was
not completely decorated, it was, according to Josette,
the most delicious Christmas cake that she has eaten so
far.
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