Mini Christmas Cakes

For the mini Christmas cakes

• Preheat the oven to 180°C (160° fan)| gas 4.
• Line a large baking tray with greaseproof paper and place eight, tall metal rings on it, spaced apart. Grease the insides of the rings with some sunflower oil.
• Mix all the dried fruit with the lemon zest, candied peel, and whisky. Set aside to soak.
• Sieve the flour with the baking powder into a large mixing bowl.
• In a separate mixing bowl, cream the butter with the sugar and honey, and then gradually beat in the eggs one by one.
• Work in the flour, milk, and mixed dried fruit until you have a smooth batter.
• Divide the batter between the metal rings so that it comes about 6.5 cm | 2.5" up the sides of the rings.
• Bake for 30 minutes and then reduce the oven to 150°C (130° fan)| gas 2 and bake for a further 1 hour 5-15 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean from the centre of the mini cakes.
• Cover their tops with aluminium foil if they brown too quickly.
• Remove from the oven and leave the cakes to cool in their rings for 15 minutes.
• After 15 minutes, carefully turn them out from their rings and move to a wire rack to finish cooling.

For the icing and decoration

• Brush the tops of the cooled cakes with some of the apricot jam.
• Dust a work surface with some icing sugar and then roll out the marzipan to 0.5 cm | 0.25" thickness. Using the diameter of the cakes as a guide, cut out 12 rounds of marzipan.
• Place them on top of the cakes, pressing down gently to adhere to the jam.
• Roll out 300 g of the fondant icing to 0.5 cm | 0.25" thickness.
• Cut out 12 rounds, in the same fashion as the marzipan.
• Brush the tops of the marzipan on the cakes with more apricot jam before placing the fondant rounds on top.
• Press down gently to adhere and then smooth them flat.
• Divide the remaining fondant icing in half. Dab one piece with some red food colouring before kneading and rolling until evenly red in colour; add more colouring as needed to achieve the right colour.
• Do the same for the second piece of fondant, using green colouring this time.
• Roll out both coloured pieces of fondant to 0.25 cm | 0.125" thickness.
• Cut out festive decorations such as wreaths and leaves with a small paring knife.
• Stick the decorations to the tops of the cakes using a little water to help them adhere.
• Leave to set and dry before serving the mini Christmas cakes.