I made royal icing last night for the Christmas Cake to put over the marzipan. A very tedious half hour with an electric handheld mixer to beat the egg whites until they were stiff, and then beat in the powdered sugar.

The recipe that I used from an old Joy of Cooking called for the juice of 1 lemon. I used ReaLemon which says that 3 ta­ble­spoons = 1 lemon. I added two ta­ble­spoons, which was quite lemony. The recipe that I’ve linked to calls for two teaspoons, which seems like a better choice.

I had drizzled whiskey over the cake several times to keep it moist. That was a mistake. The cake turned out to be quite damp.

Before baking the cake in November, I had also thoroughly soaked the dried fruit for a couple of days in hot water and whiskey. The fruit was very plump, but with hindsight, I think I should have thoroughly drained the soaked fruit for some hours.

Still, it tastes good, but it could be better.