
Use colourful printed wafer paper to decorate your Christmas cake in minutes like this issue’s front cover star designed by cake artist Natasha Collins.

And it’s not just for cakes – give gingerbread biscuits a quick and easy decoration by attaching wafer paper to sugarpaste with a little edible glue. Natasha’s top tip? Lay the biscuit face-down until the paper is firmly fixed in place.

Combine a minimalist colour palette with a distressed wooden panelled effect to create Zoe Burmester’s elegant celebration cake with a Scandinavian feel. Complete with a painted stag and antlers modelled from Cocoform.

Make an elegant selection of seasonal sugar flowers including red ranunculuses and crimson Christmas roses. Elena Wilkinson is a previous winner of the prestigious cake decorating and sugarcraft competition at Squires Kitchen’s annual exhibition.

Beautiful Biscuits author Tessa Whitehouse reveals her surprisingly simple technique for making intricate-looking bauble biscuits. Create the intricate pattern using Flexi-Ice and fill in the gaps with piping sparkles for a fun and festive design.

When it’s cold outside, what better way to keep warm than doing a bit of baking? Expert pastry chef Mark Tilling continues his Ultimate Baking series with a recipe for dense ginger cake filled with Swiss meringue buttercream and salted caramel sauce.

Use easy and effective layers of coloured to create a snowy mountain scene. Sherry Hostler has created handy templates, making it super easy for you to create your very own sugarpaste ski chalet..

Emily Hankins is a master of painting with cocoa butter and dust food colours, and this festive design is no exception. Paint this gingerbread house and biscuits in icy blue tones for a stunning centrepiece.

Black Forest is a classic combination of flavours and this gluten- and dairy-free version tastes divine. Cherries and almonds complement each other perfectly so the cake tastes great with a covering of marzipan. Finished with contemporary ganache drips and marzipan cherries, this is a pretty and achievable recipe by baking tutor Marianne Stewart.

This colourful cake is sure to make any New Year’s Eve party go off with a bang! It’s also a great project for practising a variety of sugarcraft skills: airbrush the night sky before painting colourful bursts of fireworks over the top.
You’ll find these step-by-step tutorials and many more from top cake designers in the December/January 2016–17 issue of Cakes & Sugarcraft magazine, out now. It’s packed with the latest trends and original, easy-to-follow tutorials that you won’t find anywhere else.
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