Christmas cake - an attempt at fondant icing

As is our family tradition, the icing of the Christmas cake was up to me this year. In the past, I've made figurines out of white marzipan to sit on top of the royal icing...

...but this year I decided to go for some fondant icing. Which turned out to be far more difficult than I expected. Making the icing paste is straightforward enough - icing sugar with not very much water, plus food colouring (be prepared for funny-coloured hands for a few days afterwards if your mixing's anything like mine), but rolling it into thin shapes turned out to be pretty tricky - as soon as you do, it starts to dry out and crack.

Anyway, I eventually achieved this poinsettia:

But I clearly need more practice. Next year's Christmas list has one entry already - cake decorating lessons!