Marzipan on fruit cake??

Hi there - cake HIB here

Before the days of the soft, rolled out sugarpaste icing when wedding cakes were covered with Royal Icing (the rock hard stuff) marzipan was needed to give a smooth surface on which to apply the royal icing.

It is also used as a barrier between the fruit cake and the icing, the dried fruit in the cake absorbs the alcohol that the cake is cooked with like a sponge and the marzipan stops the moisture from the fruit etc seeping through the icing to the surface and discolouring it.

We occasionally have people ask for fruit cake without marzipan for taste reasons. Normally, we apply two layers of icing instead to give us a smooth first layer to ensure a flawless covering on the finished cake. I would say though that if you go for fruit cake without marzipan make sure the icing is quite thick and not applied too long before the wedding just to make sure you don't get any discolouration from the cake below.

HTH
Catherine

Thank you very much, another reason I was hoping not to use marzipan is because I brought a cutter for the icing on 2" cakes and if I use this to cut out the marzipan and the icing the icing cut out ends up being too small. Think I'll have a practice andlike you said maybe leave it till last minute to ice. Thanks once again xx