Did you see Kirstie and Phil fiddling with Peggy Porschen’s fondant fancies on last night’s Kirstie and Phil’s Perfect Christmas on Channel 4?
Oh, isn’t life so perfect in their world? Don’t you believe it. I made some gloriously kitsch heart-shaped fondant fancies from her book Peggy Porschen’s Pretty Party Cakesand by the time I’d finished icing them the kitchen looked like a scene from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
Peggy Porschen is cake maker to the stars. She has a posh shop in Belgravia where she bakes exquisite cakes for the likes of Madonna, Elton John. She made Stella McCartney’s wedding cake.
For the telly she showed Phil and Kirstie how to make dinky little Christmas parcels finished with a big icing bow. Well, actually they only made the icing bows so their kitchen remained in perfect order.
Mine on the other hand was chaos when I was persuaded to make her sparkly hearts for the school cake stall. Even before the icing there were hours of prep. Make a Victoria sponge, fill with butter icing, pour over vanilla syrup, cover it all in marzipan and cut into heart shapes. Then warm the fondant icing to just the right temperature, colour it to just the right shade of pink, dip the cakes in the gloopy, sticky icing without letting them fall into the icing as I did and filling the icing with cake crumbs. Somehow, I don’t think Peggy gets into this mess.
But having pressed them into foil cases and dipped them in edible glitter they did look pretty good. Obviously not as good as Peggy’s in the book but good enough to win the prize of ‘Cake Most Like Its Baker.’ So, happy ending, but I won’t be making them again in a hurry.
If you want to learn how to make cakes like Peggy Porschen, she runs a three day wedding cake masterclass at the heart-stopping price of £975. They are fabulous cakes though. Check out her website www.peggyporschencom.