Now that Christmas is just around the corner, it’s high time to make plans for your holiday menu, including what to serve as cake for dessert. For dessert, you simply can’t go wrong with baking a Christmas cake for your family, friends, and loved ones. A Christmas cake can be the highlight of your family’s holiday meal. After a heavy meal, you can pair it with coffee or hot cocoa, and your guests can sit down in front of a fire and bask in each other’s company.
Baking and knowing how to decorate a Christmas cake can be relatively simple, so don’t feel overwhelmed and pressured if you get assigned the task of baking a cake for Christmas. With just a few trimmings here and there, you can transform an otherwise very ordinary cake into a Christmas cake that will look stunning once it’s placed on the dinner table.
If you are at a loss on how to decorate a Christmas cake, here are three Christmas cake decorating trends which can serve as your inspiration when you bake and decorate a Christmas cake this holiday season!
The Gift Parcel Cake
For this type of cake decoration, you will need to go big on the fondant, making sure that it has been applied flawlessly on the cake. You can do this by pressing down the fondant gently with your fingers and using a fondant smoother to iron out kinks and lumps. Use fondant as well to create the perfect bow, and use a pasta maker to make the fondant appear as flat as possible.
The Christmas Rustic Forest Cake
The rustic look remains an ever-popular trend when it comes to cake decorating. One of the important aspects of a rustic-inspired cake is to add a gorgeous texture which provides a nice contrast to an otherwise ordinary cake. In order to add a holiday twist to a rustic cake, simply cover your cake with white fondant, and then stick some cinnamon sticks all over the sides. Put a swath of ribbon on the side of the cake, and place tea lights on top as finishing touches.
This great rustic Christmas cake is inspired by the classic Bûche de Noël, more commonly known as the classic chocolate Yule log. This Black Forest cake is covered in ganache icing. In order to come up with the tree stump effect, use a palette knife to create vertical lines on the sides of the cake and draw concentric circles on top with a fork. Decorate the base with some rosemary twigs, cherries, and meringue mushrooms and you’re all set.
The Pine Cone Christmas Cake
To decorate a Christmas cake, you can use chocolate balls covered with slivers of almond to mimic the appearance of pine cones, or you can use real ones that have been cleaned and sprayed with glitters.
Aside from cakes, you can also come up with Christmas cookies and Christmas cupcakes to complete your holiday meal.