Icing the Chocolate Fruit Cake

Asked by Mel29. Answered on 14th September 2014

Full question

I was just wondering if you can advise if it's safe to marzipan and sugarpaste Nigella's Chocolate Fruit cake, as it's boiled? There seems to be some advice elsewhere that it's not safe to do this for a boiled cake, as the cake will go mouldy? Is this correct? Thank you.

Our answer

Nigella's Chocolate Fruit Cake (from Christmas and on the Nigella website) is a type of fruit cake known as a boiled fruit cake as the fruit and alcohol are heated together before the cake is mixed. This helps the fruit to plump up and absorb the alcohol quickly, rather than having to leave it for several days to soak. The cake is also very moist and doesn't need to be stored and "fed" in the same manner as a traditional Christmas cake.

However the keeping time of this cake is shorter than the keeping time for a traditional fruit cake and we would suggest keeping the cake, wrapped in parchment paper in an airtight container, for up to 1 month. It is possible to ice the cake with marzipan and royal or fondant icing but we would do this only 1 to 2 days before you eat the cake. Also the cake tends to sink slightly in the centre so you may need to level the top and then turn the cake over to give a flat surfce for icing.