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I have decorated a fruit cake with marzipan which I left to dry for about 5 days,then i covered it in sugar paste which i did 2 weeks ago. The cake is a wedding cake for next week and ive noticed that the sugarpaste has gone hard, and im now worried that i should have put the sugarpaste on nearer the time. is this ok, as i thought that usually you can finish a fruit cake well in advance and worried that the icing is too hard. is this normal. Also, I am storing the finished cakes in cake boxes, i hope this is ok?

Hi Tomandhen123

I always marzipan and ice fruit cakes weeks ahead. I have a wedding on May 3 and I’ll be icing the fruit cake tomorrow. When you say hard do you mean it has settled or does it have little hard crusty bits? If the icing hasn’t crystallised it is fine. Roll out icing doesn’t go really hard , it isn’t the same a royal icing which goes brittle. Storing the cake in a cake box is fine, that’s exactly what I do, it has never been a problem.

The icing doesn’t have crusty bits, its just that the sugar paste seems very firm and will it still taste nice when cut as it wont be soft? I have put them in a lidded cake box and was wondering if I should have put cakes in tins as boxes are not air tight.

The cake will be fine. That’s how icing sets up when a cake has been decorated early but it will still be soft when the cake is cut. If it’s any help, one Christmas I decorated a fruit cake six weeks in advance, the icing firmed up nicely, cut beautifully and tasted just fine come the day. You’ve done exactly the right thing by placing the cake in a cake box and not a tin. A cardboard cake box allows ventilation and prevents any sweating of the cake or icing. x