Marzipan fruits

I made these Marzipan fruits on the same weekend as the fabulous Penguin Party- it was a serious sugar modelling weekend and my hands were stained all kinds of colours from all the food colouring! They look like my own little market stall :)

This fruit salad consists of bananas, apples, limes, clementines, lemons, cherries and peaches. They're not exactly to scale!

I think it's really important to get the colours and textures as realistic as possible. Notice how the lemons are a different, brighter, shade of yellow than the bananas. To texture the citrus fruits I simply rolled them against a real orange - what better way could there be to create the effect of the zest?! No fancy modelling tools here!

I diluted a bit of paste colour with vodka to make a thin paint for the bananas - one of the rare times a liquid food colouring is the right thing for the job.

I think the fruits made a cute Christmas present in this heart shaped box I bought in the local market;