can anyone tell me the best way to carve and ice a fruitcake it will be marzipan as a base but the thought of all those bobbles of fruit fills me with dread, i took order and then customer tells me it must be fruit cake, i told her i wasnt sure but my price will be a specialoffer as i havent done this before she seems pleased with that but how on earth do i do it and have neat edges

When most people ice a fruit cake they'll spend a bit of time plugging up the little dips & holes all over the cake with little bits of fondant/marzipan. It's time consuming. If you carve a traditional fruit cake you'll probably still have to spend a bit of time plugging in little bits of marzipan to get the cake surface as smooth as possible before covering.

The last few fruit cakes I've done I got jack of this process, it's just so tedious! So what I've been doing is taking a bit of the fondant/marzipan (I've only done this with fondant, but I would assume marzipan would work -?) and mixing it with whatever alcohol I've used on the cake (in my case that's sweet sherry, but use brandy if that's what you soaked the cake with). Microwave it for a few seconds to warm, and mix enough alcohol to make a good spackling consistency. While it's warm I spread it sparingly all over the cake, just to fill in all the little holes, and smooth out any rough areas. Then cover the cake with marzipan/fondant as normal. So far it's been working out really well for me...I had worried that it might make the surface of the cake a goopy mess, but after it's left for a day or two it's fine.