The cake is a dark 'black' fruit cake, and it has to be made months in advance of coating; it has to be wrapped in greaseproof and foil, to allow the cake to 'cure' and for the flavours and the brandy to spread evenly. Then it is coated with apricot preserve (not jam) and then a layer of almond paste on 5 sides. My wife used to make the paste but later took to using marzipan blocks; it all had to be rolled evenly, and the edges mitred. Then came the three coats of icing sugar, very thin, and of Royal Icing (not the ready rolled, which never set properly and allowed staining to come through). it was levelled and smoothed with a chrome steel bar, to get all the air bubbles out. The rest was painstaking setting out and ice decorating.
Woe betide anyone that got within ten feet whilst this was ongoing. In this case, the angel was my work.
