Easy Christmas Cake Decorating Tutorial

This Christmas cake decorating idea came about last year, and as much as I wanted to post it last year itself, it somehow got delayed until now. And since its just a few weeks away for Christmas this year, I told my self I have to get this cake idea up on my blog.

A round cake decorated with holly garland and fondant baubles.

Easy Christmas cake decorating idea

And so here it is, an easy Christmas cake idea incorporating my favorite Christmas deco items – a lovely wreath decorated with holly leaves and berries and pretty maroon baubles decorated in gold.

Overall, this was not a very hard design to assemble. In fact, it can be put together in a fairly short period of time.

This is a detailed step by step cake decorating tutorial and hope you find it useful for your Christmas cake decorating projects!

Easy Christmas cake decorating idea

Easy Christmas Cake Decorating Tutorial

These were the main supplies I used to come up with this Christmas cake design:

Raw Material

Cake – this was a 6 inch round cake measuring 6 inches high. I used my butter pound cake recipe for the cake, baked it in 3 layers in 3 separate cake pans.
Buttercream – I used buttercream to fill the cake layers as well as to crumb coat the cake.
Fondant – The entire cake was covered in this icing and all the decorations on the cake were also of fondant. I used Satin Ice in white, chocolate, red, black, and green.
Lemon extract – I mixed the gold edible dust with lemon extract to achieve a smooth paintable gold paste.
Edible gold dust – I used this to paint the stars and stripes on the baubles.
Gold dragees – these were store-bought, and I purchased them from a local cake decorating supplies shop.
Fondant glue & Shortening – these were the glues for the project.

Tools

Fondant extruder tool – I used this tool to decorate the Christmas baubles on the cake. There were 2 different disc patterns used, one a small circle disc and the other a small flat oblong shape.
Sugarcraft knife – this was a general cutting tool in the project.
Round cutter set – I used a medium-sized cutter for the baubles.
Holly leaf plunger cutter – I used a set consisting of 3 different sizes of leaves. For this project, I used the medium-sized leaves.
Snowflakes plunger cutter – this was also part of a set of 3 plunger cutters and I used the medium-sized one for this project.
Square plunger cutter – I used this for the top portion of the baubles.

Easy Christmas cake decorating idea

And this was how I put the Christmas cake together:

In decorating the cake, I started by preparing the cake first. Once baked and completely cooled down, I leveled the layers, sandwiched them with buttercream and covered them with a thin coat of buttercream. And then I covered the stacked cake with white fondant.

The Christmas wreath frame

Next, I made the wreath frame. To make this, pinched out tiny pieces of chocolate fondant and rolled them into thin strips.

And then I gathered all the strips together and gently twisted them.

Twisting a group of brown fondant strips with hands

Christmas Cake Decorating

I applied a coat of shortening on the edges of the cake top and placed the twisted strips on top. And I repeated the process until I achieved a complete wreath that was about the same size as the cake diameter.

In joining the Christmas wreath pieces together, I adjusted the ends so that they look as natural as possible.

Christmas Cake Decorating

Where it was too thin, I rolled out additional chocolate strips and attached them to the wreath especially at the joints.

Strips of thin brown fondant twigs on a white cake

The gold stripes on the baubles

Once the wreath base was in place, I went ahead to make the baubles. I started with the gold strips. To make these, I used my extruder tool and piped out the lines. I used 2 different shapes, one a flat wide strip and the other, small plain thin round strip.
The small plain thin round strips were also to be used as the ropes from which the baubles hang around the cake, so I made sure I piped some of these strips long enough to fit as the ropes. For the rest, I piped the strips in random lengths making sure their lengths were at least as long as the diameter of the baubles.

Piping a white fondant strip from an extruder tool

Next, I straightened all the strips properly before leaving them aside to set. Once set, I painted them gold.

The gold snowflakes

Next, I prepared the gold snowflakes. These were cut out of white fondant using my snowflakes plunger cutter. I made a couple of these, including some extras to give allowance for any breakages.

Fondant snowflakes and a snowflakes plunger cutter

And then I painted them gold and left them aside for the paint to dry.

Christmas Cake Decorating - Gold Snowflakes

The bauble strings

While waiting for the strips to set, I measured and marked my cake at regular intervals to position the strings. Firstly, I measured the circumference of the cake. And then I divided and marked it into equal intervals, making sure the intervals were neither too short nor too long, but just nice once the baubles themselves were added on to the cake.

Using a measuring tape and needle tool to mark a cake

As for the length, since some were short and some were long, I marked these on the cake as well.

Using a needle tool and a ruler to mark a cake

And then I applied a thin coat of glue at the back of my thin fondant strips and carefully attached them to the cake.

I cut off excesses using my sugar craft knife.

Making the baubles

Once the gold strings were in place, I made the baubles. I wanted to achieve a deep red tone for these and since the closest color to a deep red hue I had was red fondant, I mixed a little black fondant to it to achieve the color I wanted.

A lump of red fondant and a small lump of black fondant

And then I rolled it thin and cut out the baubles. I cut all of them at the same time and kept them covered as I worked on each of them.

A rolled piece of maroon fondant with a round cutter on the side

Next, I dusted the round maroon cutouts with pearl luster dust. This gave the maroon a pretty luster shine.

Brushing a round maroon cut out with luster dust

I then attached the gold snowflakes to half of the baubles. I used shortening to hold the flakes in place. And then, using the opposite end of one of my cake decorating brushes, I marked tiny little dents around the edges.

Poking holes with the back of a paint brush on a round maroon fondant cut out

Adding the gold dragees

I filled the dents with gold dragees, one dragee into each hole. To hold the beads securely in place, I applied a light coat of fondant glue into each dent before placing a gold dragee into each of them.

A round maroon fondant cut out with a gold snowflake and gold bead frame

I left these aside and went on to decorate the remaining maroon circles with the second design, i.e., the gold geometrical lines. I started with the wider strips, followed by 2 thin strips on either side. After that, I attached these to the circles with glue. And I used my sugar craft knife to cut the excess strips off them.

A round maroon fondant cut out with gold lines on it

Christmas Cake Decorating

Attaching the baubles to the cake

Once the baubles were done, I cut out small pieces of square maroon cutouts, and using the same round cutter I used to cut my baubles, I cut off a portion of the squares. These were to become the tiny top portion of each of the maroon circles. And I dusted these with pearl luster dust.

Square pieces of maroon fondant cut with a square plunger cutter

Using a round cutter to cut a small piece of maroon fondant

Once done, I attached these small pieces to the cake, one piece at the end of each fondant strip.

A long gold strip of fondand attached to a small rectangle piece of maroon fondant on a white cake

That was followed by the snowflakes baubles at the end of each long strip and the geometrical lined ones at the end of the short strips.

A round cake decorated with maroon baubles.

Christmas Cake Decorating

The holly leaves

After that, I went ahead to complete the wreath on the cake by adding holly leaves to it. For the leaves, I used Satin Ice green fondant and added a tiny bit of black to it to give the leaves a darker hue of green.

A small lump of black fondant next to a large lump of green fondant

And then I rolled the fondant thin and cut out holly leaves using my medium-sized plunger cutter.

Green rolled fondant and a holly leaves cutter

Once the leaves were all cut, I arranged them onto the cake. I started with the leaves on the outer edge of the wreath. And I applied a layer of shortening to the back of each leaf before putting them on the cake.

Adding holly leaves to a fondant twigs garland on a round cake

Once the outer layer of leaves was done, I did the inner layer. These also had a thin coat of shortening at the back to hold them in place.

The holly berries

And to complete the wreath, I added tiny holly berries made out of red fondant to it. To make sure the berries don’t go rolling all over the cake top, I applied glue to each of them so that they were held in place securely.

Attaching fondant holly berries to a cake

Holly berries garland on top of a round cake

Once the wreath on the cake top was complete, I repeated the brown wreath at the base of the cake. And finally, to finish off the deco, I added 2 holly leaves and 3 holly berries to it in one section of the wreath.