DECORATING A CHRISTMAS CAKE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16408, 9 December 1916, Page 6 (Supplement)

DECORATING A CHRISTMAS CAKE.

he best plan is to bake or buy a good big sponge or simple pound cakesomething very wholesome—and let all the elaboration be expended on the outside! If a really imposing cake which will delight the little folk be required, get a second sm<fller cake to stand upon the larger one, to make a second tier. The air of magnificence obtained by this simple device is quite surprising. When iced and absolutely hard and dry the cakes must be placed one on top of the other on a large dish, which should be covered with white crinkled paper, to avoid introducing any note of colour, when they are ready to be decorated in any way you please.

Strings of silver tinsel fringe come in most splendidly when "trimming" a Christmas cake. A double row of it may encircle the base of the cake, another row should outline the upper edge, and a strip wound round the bottom of the small upper-tier cake will add much to its air of importance.

This done, a charming snow scene, with children dressed as little Eskimos, in hoods, gaiters, and tippets of white fur—all carried out in chinacan decorate the top of the lower tier of cake ; while up above may be a wee snowy house (formed of cardboard and treated to a coating of icing to represent snow), with sprinkling of white crystalline sugar to glisten like frost in the gaslight-. Also a Noah's Ark tree, similarly treated, planted beside it, and a wee figure of Father Christmas, dressed in a frosted red garment, with a frosted sack filled with something knobbly to look like presents— chocolate drops, —perched on the roof, about to scramble down the chimney. A Novel Idea. Get half-a-dozen wee penny Christmas hampers, and, having filled each one with chocolates and lightly frosted the outsides of the hambers with the help of a penny box of frost applied over a trace of gum, print six large labels cut from white note-paper, each one bearing the name of one of the guests printed upon it in large red letters, and tie one to the handle of each hamper. Now get six yards of narrow scarlet ribbon, to match the holly berries in hue, and. cutting it into six equal lengths, tie one end of each in a aav little bow to the handle of the hamper, while the other is tucked into Santa Claus's hand, beneath the hollv bough. Arrange the hampers so that each one marks the place at table of a little guest. An extra strip or two of silver tinsel wound in and out upon the cloth around the hampers add:-, greatly to the general effect of this sceme. Placed, standI ing alone, upon a two-tier cake adorned with tinsel, and bearing a branch of hollv. Father Christmas will make a. splendid centre-piece for a children's Christmas tea party. Tha Use of Penny Tovs. Another most attractive plan wherv liildren are concerned is to ice a large round cake and deck it with penny toys and care-fully-placed randies. Most "of the big stores keep the daintiest candles, hardly bigger round than a wax match, with a hard sugar ornament for base, which can be thrust into the cake so that the miniature candles stand upright without any I further trouble. A fairy doll or prancing steed may stand on the summit of the cake .and other penny toys surround the base, placed on the tablecloth inside a flat wreathing of holly made of single leaves laid flat upon the'cloth. If lightly frosted first of all. and further adorned "at intervals with a group of three red berries, the effect is very Christmassy and charming—and the little ones love the toys.