How to Decorate a Christmas Truck Cake

Take a 6” square fruit cake and cut into 3 equal portions. (If you like you can marzipan the top of the cake before cutting) Stack one of the cake slices on top of the other for the truck body and then cut a further third of the end of the remaining cake slice. Place the small piece of cake on top of the remaining piece to make the front of the truck. Position the cake on your cake board.

Lightly dust your surface with icing sugar and roll out red fondant icing, enough to cover the body of the truck. Before covering, brush the fruit cake with apricot jam to help the icing stay in place. You can use a cake smoother or your hand to smooth the icing into place.

Repeat the process and cover the front of the truck.

Roll 8 balls of black fondant into circles the size of a 10p coin and flatten, to create the wheels. Secure on to the truck by lightly brushing the back of the fondant wheels with water. Cut two long rectangular pieces of grey fondant and stick them to truck on both sides connecting the front to the body of the truck.

Roll an additional rectangle of grey fondant to create the front grill of the truck and use a sharp knife to make line indents for extra detail. To create the bumper on the truck roll grey fondant into a long sausage shape and wrap around the base of the front of the truck.

Roll two small circles of white fondant for the headlights, a large rectangle of grey or black fondant for the windowscreen and two small cubes of grey fondant for the wing mirrors. Secure the wing mirrors in place by inserting two tooth picks into the side of the cake so that the mirrors don’t drop off.

Roll out two more long sausage shapes for each side of the truck and a side window for each side. You can also create grey wheel hubs for each of the wheels for additional details.

Roll out small sausage shapes of red fondant to create the wheel protectors and stick over each of the wheels. Make up some white icing by mixing together icing sugar (we like Silver Spoon) and water. This will need to be quite thick so that it doesn’t run. Place into a piping bag with a small holed nozzle and begin to pipe small dots around the border of the truck.

Continue to pipe white dots over the truck to create the Christmas fairy lights effect, then roll out a rectangle of red fondant, big enough to fit the side of the truck. Using the white icing, pipe the wording “Holidays are Coming” or a personalised message of your choice on to the red fondant and leave to dry. Once the writing has set, brush the back of the fondant with water and stick to the side of the truck.