Christmas Tree Cake

This is going to be a quick one because it's about the decorating as I can't remember what cake I made and really, that's besides the point, you could do this with almost any cake. I think it was either a basic butter cake or a White Chocolate Mudcake.

Basically I bought a Christmas Tree cake mould (from eBay or Avon I can't remember) and it made my Christmas dessert for the year much easier to make... in theory. I still spent hours decorating it on Christmas Eve of course!

So, make your cake. If you don't have a Christmas Tree mould, I'd suggest a square cake and then cut up into trapeziums of shrinking size with a little rectangle for the trunk (and if you're creative enough, a star...)

Once you have your cake, we're ready to decorate!

You'll need
 - 2 packs of ready-made fondant icing
 - green food colouring (or yellow and blue)
 - brown food colouring (or red, yellow and blue)
 - Smarties / M&Ms or some other such colourful circular lolly to decorate with
 - 1/2 cup icing sugar
 - a few drops of lemon juice

Method
Step 1: Divide the fondant into 3 portions with the rough ratio 80:15:5 and use your food colouring to get the colours green : brown : yellow for each portion respectively by kneading the fondant (you may want to use rubber gloves (food grade) or your hands will become a rather 'interesting' colour...)

Step 2: Roll the brown fondant into a rectangular piece large enough to place of the trunk of the tree.

Step 3: Putting the fondant onto the cake... to make the fondant stick you might need to spread a thin layer something like jam over it first. If its a butter cake you could potentially use melted butter.

Step 4: Place the brown fondant over the trunk and gently mould it to the shape of the trunk. To smooth any folded bits of icing (e.g. over the corners of the trunk) use a wet knife or the back of a spoon.

Step 5: Divide the green fondant into 4 pieces with the rough ratio of 40:30:20:10 and then use a rolling pin to roll them into strips. Starting with the longest piece, place the fondant onto the tree from the bottom up.

Step 6: (Only if you have a 'star' to put at the top of the tree...) Roll the yellow fondant into a big enough circle to cover your star and place the fondant onto the star shape.

Step 7: Mix the icing sugar and lemon juice together until it is a semi-firm consistency that can be piped onto the tree. Using a piping bag, zig zag a line from the top to the bottom of the tree.

Use the same icing to pipe dots over the tree, placing your Smarties/M&Ms on the tree as you go before the icing sets.