Michelle's Freefrom Egg-free Christmas or Festive Cake Icings

Corn, egg, gluten, lactose, milk, nightshade, peanut, sesame, soya & wheat free

Our good friend Dick Mieli spent some of his chefing career working for a baker in New Orleans producing wonderfully 'fancy' cake icings. As a base they always used vegetable shortening (sold as Trex, Crisco or Spry) as it was very workable, temperature stable and more or less tasteless. Some also include hydrogenated fats (Trex does not) which we would not normally use in our recipes but given that this is only for a very occasional treat and one is not eating that much of it, we will let that pass...

'Royal' Icing or Frostingfreefrom icings

To cover 20cm / 8inch cake

Ingredients

  • 300g vegetable shortening - Spry, Trex or Crisco
  • 500g icing/confectioner's sugar
  • vanilla or almond essence to taste

Method

  1. Beat the shortening with the sugar in a food mixer until reasonably well mixed then remove and work with your hand until smooth and creamy.
  2. Add vanilla or almond essence (a few drops at a time as they are quite strong) and more sugar if you think you need it, and mix well again.
  3. Store in cling film in the fridge or a cool larder until needed. It will keep almost indefinitely.

Marzipan

Ingredients

  • 300g ground almonds
  • 150–180g icing/confectioner's sugar
  • 6 tbsp vegetable shortening – Spry, Trex or Crisco
  • almond essence to taste

Method

  1. Mix the ground almonds thoroughly with the sugar.
  2. Work the shortening with your hand until it is very soft then work in the dry ingredients.
  3. Add extra flavour with almond essence, a few drops at a time as it is quite strong, and a little more sugar if it is not sweet enough.
  4. Store in cling film in the fridge or a cool larder until needed. It will keep almost indefinitely.

To ice the cake

  1. Spread a very thin layer of jam over the top and down the sides of the cake.
  2. Lay a piece of cling film out on a board and sprinkle over some icing sugar.
  3. Gently roll out the marzipan then, with the help of the cling film roll it over the rolling pin and then onto the cake. Don't worry if it breaks as you can stick it together with your fingers and it will all be covered by the frosting!
  4. Pat it down all round the cake making sure that there are no gaps and that it is fairly smooth.
  5. With a wide-bladed knife or spatula, spread the icing/frosting over the marzipan. You can make it rough and snow like or smooth it out (using your spatula dipped in hot water) as you prefer.
  6. Make sure that all the marzipan is covered.
  7. Decorate as you fancy!

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