6 fun and easy designs for mini Christmas cakes cooked in tin cans or muffin tins - with photo tutorials for all 6 easy Christmas cake decorating ideas.
In the run-up to Christmas last year, I shared my cute little Tin-Can Mini Christmas Cakes recipe as part of the Eats Amazing Festive Food Advent Calendar.
I intended to follow up with this post about how to decorate them shortly afterwards, but the chaos of Christmas preparation caught up with me and I realised this week that I never had finished writing up the post!
It might be a year late, but better late then never as they say, so today I'm sharing my how-to cake decorating tutorials for all six mini Christmas cake designs!
I really enjoyed coming up with these fun Christmas cake designs. All of them are super easy, because lets face it, time is at a premium at this time of year so quick, easy and do-able will always win the day!
I started the decorations with a layer of marzipan. Initially I thought about covering the cakes completely with marzipan and icing, but I went for a simpler topping instead, firstly because I thought a full covering would be too much for such little cakes, and secondly, to be completely honest, because I'm really not very good at covering cakes so I feared they would take far to long to decorate and look a mess at the end of it to boot!
I bought ready-made marzipan (more time saving!) but if you fancy making your own BBC Good Food has a great marzipan recipe you can use.
To add the marzipan base to the cakes, simply roll out the marzipan to about the thickness of a one pound coin and cut out disks using the frilled side of a round cookie cutter, the same size as the top of each cake.
Brush the top of each cake with a thin layer of apricot jam and carefully place the marzipan disks on top, ready to be decorated with icing.
As well as the marzipan and various icing designs, I also finished each cake off with a pretty ribbon, tied around the middle. I secured the ribbon by overlapping at the back and sticking together with double sided tape and they held up pretty well. You could also try tying the ribbon with a pretty bow on the front.
Below I've detailed how to decorate each cake. As I mentioned above they are all very simple and quick to do, so great for making with the kids!
Gold sprinkle Christmas Tree Design
Start by rolling out and cutting a circle of white fondant icing, one size smaller than the cutter you used for the marzipan. Cut a Christmas tree shape from the icing disk using a mini cutter, then carefully transfer the icing disk to the top of the cake, attaching it to the marzipan with a little brush of water.
Fill the Christmas tree shaped hole with sprinkles - I used gold star sprinkles for mine.
Penguin and Trees Design
Roll and cut out a disk of white fondant icing as before. Secure the disk of fondant icing to the cake with a little water.
Push in two Christmas Tree cupcake picks and a penguin bento pick to decorate. You could also finish the cake off with a dusting of icing sugar for snow if wanted.
Fondant Gold Stars Design
Colour a small amount of fondant icing with yellow gel food colouring. Roll out the yellow icing and cut different sized stars using mini cutters.
Place the yellow fondant stars on a piece of grease-proof or baking paper and spray with edible gold shimmer spray. You may need to spray them more than once to get a really good gold colour. Leave to dry.
Cut out a disk of white fondant icing as before and top the cake. Add an assortment of the gold stars to the top to decorate the cake.
Note: To pick the fondant stars up without losing their shape, slide a sharp knife underneath and lift with the blade to place them on the cake.
Holly Sprig Design
Roll out and cut a circle of white fondant icing and place on top of the marzipan as before. Cut a sprig of fresh holly, or use plastic holly if preferred. If using real holly, give it a rinse under cold water then pat dry with a piece of kitchen towel.
Tightly wrap the base of the stalk with a little clingfilm then place on the top of the cake, pressing the stalk a little way into the icing to secure in place.
Simple Snowman Design
This is the simplest of the designs, needing only a cupcake ring to decorate. You can find the snowman cupcake ring that I used in the Eats Amazing Shop here: Arctic Friends Cupcake Rings.
To decorate, roll and cut out a disk of fondant as before and fix to the top of the cake with a little water. Push the back of the cupcake ring into the top of the cake to secure.
Fondant Snowflakes Design
Roll out white fondant icing to the thickness of a one pound coin. Cut out a circle for the top of the cake as before, and two mini snowflakes for each cake.
Place the fondant snowflakes on a piece of greaseproof or baking paper and spray with silver shimmer spray, then leave to dry.
Once nearly dry and slightly tacky to touch, carefully place a blue snowflake sprinkle in the centre of each fondant snowflake and gently press down to stick in place.
Add the disk of white fondant icing to the top of the cake as before. Add two snowflakes to the top to decorate the cake.
Note: To pick the fondant snowflakes up without losing their shape, slide a sharp knife underneath and lift with the blade to place them on the cake.
I hope you've enjoyed this mini Christmas cake decoration post, it turned into quite a long one!
If you'd like to try making them yourself, you'll find my mini Christmas cake recipe here: Mini Tin-Can Christmas Cakes. You could make all 6 fun designs, or choose one and use it to decorate all 6 cakes.
Looking for more Christmas gift ideas to make with kids? Check out this collection of 30 easy edible gift ideas that kids can make for Christmas or our Homemade Gift Recipes section!
For more delicious and fun food ideas for the festive season, check out the Christmas Food section here on the Eats Amazing blog or pop over and follow my Christmas Pinterest boards for lots more fun ideas from around the web; Christmas, Cute Christmas Food Ideas and Healthy Christmas Food.
Grace
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