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Decorated Candies and Cakes: Christmas
Christmas Tree Cake Bake a cake two inches deep in a dripping pan. When cool, cut out in the shape of a Christmas tree on a standard.
Cover cake with Japanese Frosting, colored green, and flavored with orange flower water. Sprinkle with long shredded cocoanut colored green. Decorate the cake with tiny candies put on to imitate toys and candles. Place at the base toys fashioned from almond paste. Serve on a lace paper doily on a large plate or tray. Individual trees may be made if preferred.
Fondant or Almond Paste Flowers Color fondant or almond paste to match the flowers that are to be made, using enough confectioners' sugar to make the mixture stiff enough to hold its shape. Model each petal separately, and fasten directly to the soft frosting of a cake, or complete the flowers and buds before frosting the cake. They may be kept several days before being used. Tiny birthday candles may be set in the center of each bud and flower if desired.
Two decorating projects rather than baking formulas: a flat cut-out Christmas tree cake and modelled fondant or almond-paste flowers. Both assume you have a plain cake and a frosting recipe from elsewhere in the book.
- The dripping panA dripping pan is the large shallow rectangular pan that sat under a roast; a half sheet pan (13x18 in) is roughly the modern equivalent. Two inches deep means a full, firm cake, not a thin sponge, and a butter or pound-type batter cuts far more cleanly than a foam cake.
- Cut it cold, with a templateThis is the hinge of the whole thing. Cut the paper pattern first, chill the cake thoroughly (an hour in the freezer is better still), and cut with a long thin knife wiped between strokes. Warm cake tears and the tree loses its points.
- Japanese FrostingA cross-reference to another recipe in this book, not a commercial product. Period frostings under that name are meringue-style, and any that beat uncooked egg white into sugar should be made with pasteurized whites today. A Swiss meringue buttercream behaves the same way under coconut and candies.
- Orange flower waterStill sold, still potent. A quarter to half a teaspoon in a batch of frosting is enough; more and it turns soapy. Distilled orange flower water from a Middle Eastern grocer is the same thing and cheaper than the baking-aisle bottle.
- ColouringModern gel colour gives strong colour with a fraction of the liquid, which matters in a meringue frosting that thins easily. Tint the coconut in a jar with a drop of gel and a few drops of water, shaking to coat.
- Long shredded cocoanutThe old long-thread coconut is now sold as flaked or chip coconut; desiccated coconut is too fine to read as needles. Unsweetened flakes take colour better than sweetened.
- Almond paste is not marzipanAlmond paste has a higher almond-to-sugar ratio and is softer and less sweet. For modelling toys and petals, knead in confectioners' sugar as the recipe says until it holds an edge without cracking; too much and it turns crumbly.
- The candlesTiny birthday candles set into fondant flowers or the tree burn down fast and drip wax onto the frosting. Use small holders, keep them clear of the almond-paste figures, and lift them out before the cake is cut.
- YieldThe recipe gives no yield. A half sheet cut into a tree might serve somewhere around 16 to 20, with a good deal of trim left over; the offcuts make cake balls or a trifle. Individual trees would yield a couple of dozen or more depending on the cutter and the waste.
The decorated tree cake belongs to the moment when the German Christmas tree had become thoroughly domesticated in British and American homes and every part of the holiday table was expected to echo it. Books of this period treat confectionery as a branch of ornament as much as of cookery: fondant, almond paste and boiled frostings were the sculptor's materials, and the same modelling techniques turned out flowers for a birthday cake, fruits for a bonbon dish, or toys for the base of a tree. Orange flower water, the flavouring called for here, is an older taste than vanilla in English and American baking, distilled from bitter orange blossom and common in confectionery from the seventeenth century onward; by the time of this recipe it already read as slightly old-fashioned and refined. The instruction to serve on a lace paper doily is the tell of the era's table conventions, where the presentation surface was considered part of the recipe.