To make these iced squares quick and easy to cover, we’ve used fondant icing sugar that’s widely available in large supermarkets – and you just need to add water.
You will need:
- 20cm square madeira cake
- 2tbsp apricot baking glaze (melted)
- 1kg fondant icing sugar (ready to make)
- 4 food colours: yellow, lime, turquoise blue, orange
- 100g soft peak royal icing
- Water
Equipment:
- Knife
- Ruler
- Pastry brush
- Cooling rack and tray
- Mixing bowl and metal spoon
- Selection of small bowls
- Round icing nozzle
- 4 piping bags
Step-by-Step Icing Your Squares
1. Gently score the top of your cake to divide it into 16 evenly sized squares of about 5cm x 5cm – use a ruler to help you. Cut the squares with a sharp knife.
2. Dip your pastry brush into the melted apricot glaze and brush it thinly over the top of each square. Place the squares on a cooling rack over a metal tray, ensuring there’s space around each one.
3. Sift the fondant icing sugar into a bowl and pour in half the amount of water recommended on the pack to ensure a thick covering on your cake. Mix well. If you feel it’s too thick, add a few more teaspoons of water.
4. Slowly pour half the white fondant icing over seven of the squares, moving the bowl back and forth to cover each square evenly. The icing should spread and trickle down the sides of each cake.
5. Divide the remaining icing into three bowls. Tint one bowl with lime, one with yellow, and one with blue. Pour the contents of each bowl over three squares and allow to dry for two hours.
Expert Tip – To get a strong icing colour on the tops of your sponge squares, top each one with a square of white sugarpaste before pouring over the fondant icing.
Place the round icing nozzle into a piping bag before you get started. Divide 100g soft peak royal icing into four small bowls and tint one with yellow, one with lime, and one with turquoise blue and one with orange. Place a damp cloth over each bowl to stop them drying out. The designs used on the Iced Sponge Squares are simple lines and dots in a variety of combinations and colours. Use the examples shown below and right as the basis for creating the other designs – or create your own new designs.
Line Design
1. Spoon lime icing into a piping bag an squeeze a dot on one edge of a white cake. Lift the nozzle slightly and pipe a line to the other side of the cake. Touch the nozzle down lightly at the point where you want the line to end.
2. Repeat four or five times, making sure your lines are spaced evenly apart.
3. Now using the orange icing, pipe new lines in between the lime ones – this time with the dots starting at the opposite side of the cake.
Dot Design
1. Still using the orange icing, squeeze out small, evenly spaced dots over a lime iced square.
2. Start in one corner and work your way across the cake, one row of dots at a time.
3. Squeeze gently to create each dot and release pressure when you’re happy with the size.
4. To remove any peaks in your dots, dab them down gently with a damp brush.
