Hi

What would I crumb coat a large christmas spiced fruit cake in, that will have almond and then white fondant over the top.

Needs to sit in the warm for 3 or so days before it will be cut and will be heavily decorated.

Thanks

How warm?  Room temp or higher?  Is this fruitcake soaked in alcohol? 

All of the above matter.  Any more details?

Sorry,

Warm room, fruit soaked in alcohol before baking and then poured over whilst baked and hot from the oven .

Normaly I would use a fruit glaze and then the almond then white but I need a bump free finish.

The traditional way is to coat it with apricot jam and then fill in any holes with little bits of smooshed marzipan to give a smooth finish.  That's what I've done and although it takes a bit of time, it works.

I would do the fruit glaze as usual.  Then work your marzipan as Lizzie said.  But also used it as  you would fondant, by rolling it and smoothing it just like fondant.  When you are done with the marzipan, it will be almost as smooth.  Covering it with fondant, you can smooth it more.

That is basically what I would normally  do . However I need it to have a perfect finish and as it is loaded with fruit and nuts making the top really ,really bumpy , It really needs to be crumb coated first.

I thought a brandy butter cream, then almond maz then the white fondant, and even considered using a flavoured  white ganache. 

I would do it as thin as possible just to get the desired finish.

Has anyone done this before?

If your cake has a bumpy top, you can turn it upside down, so the part from the bottom of the tin is now the top - clean and smooth. You can roll a sausage of almond paste out and stick it around the old top/new bottom on the cake board to fill in any gaps if needed. 

Personally, I wouldn't mess around with any kind of crumb coat of ganache, stick with boiled jam, then the almond paste, then the sugar paste. 

Thanks everyone