Melting Candles Cakes

These mini cakes may look like melting pillar candles, but hidden inside is moist carrot cake, frosted with vanilla buttercream that’s covered in drippy white chocolate ganache. Today’s post includes an easy photo tutorial for making these beautiful melting candles cakes to impress your friends and family this holiday season.

You might also love these high altitude recipes for chocolate gingerbread cake, Christmas tree sheet cake, and candy cane Christmas cake.

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Why You’ll Love This Recipe

Step by Step Photos. Each step to decorating this dripping candle cake is really quite simple. It’s nothing more than frosting small layer cakes, then covering them with white chocolate.

Use Any Cake Recipe. All you need is a 9×9 inch cake, so you can use the recipe I’ve linked to, or your own favorite cake recipe.

High Altitude Tested. I develop all the recipes on my site for Denver’s altitude of 5,280 feet. If you’re at a lower or higher elevation, please see my FAQs for guidance on adjusting recipes for your altitude.

Tools and Equipment

• 9×9 Inch Square Baking Pan. I’d recommend the USA Bakeware 9-inch Pan for this project.
• 2 3/4 Inch Round Biscuit Cutter. After baking the cake, you’ll need to cut it into small rounds. Yes, you’ll have a few extra scraps to eat, but this is a better option for most people, rather than buying a bunch of tiny round pans to bake individual cakes in. My set of biscuit cutters includes one that’s 2 3/4 inches in diameter, which is just right for cutting a 9×9 inch cake into 9 rounds.

See the recipe card at the end of the post for the full ingredients list and instructions.

Ingredients

• 9×9 Inch Cake. For today’s melted candles cake, I used 1/2 my recipe for carrot cake, baked in a 9-inch cake pan. You can use any flavor of cake you like, though, and I have many sheet cake recipes on my website to choose from. If the recipe makes enough cake batter for a 9×13 inch sheet cake, simply make half the recipe for a 9×9 inch cake.
• Buttercream. You’ll need 3x my recipe for Vanilla Buttercream.
• White Chocolate. You can use either white chocolate chips, or chop of a bar of white chocolate to make the white chocolate ganache drip.
• Cream. A small amount of cream needs to be added to the white chocolate. This keeps it soft and pliable (as opposed to a hard chocolate shell) so that you can easily cut the cake.
• White Gel Food Coloring. This is optional, but a few drops of “bright white” gel food coloring can help to slightly lighten the yellow color that white chocolate typically has. It will not make it perfectly white, though. For a pure white color on the chocolate drips, you’d need to use bright white candy melts (which won’t taste nearly as good as white chocolate, though).
• Tea Light Candles. To complete these cakes, you’ll need tea light candles. I’ve seen some people simply insert a white birthday candle into the cakes and light it just before serving. But you’ll get a longer burn time using tea lights.

Instructions

Bake the Cake

• Preheat the oven to 350 F, and position a rack in the center of the oven. Line a 9×9 inch square baking pan with parchment paper so the paper comes up all 4 sides of the pan.
• Prepare 1/2 the recipe for carrot sheet cake. Or, make 1/2 of any 9×13 inch cake recipe.
• Pour the batter into the prepared pan, and bake the cake for 25-28 minutes, until a cake tester comes out clean or with moist crumbs clinging to it.
• Cool the cake completely before frosting and assembling.

Cut the Cakes

• Remove the cake from the pan by lifting it out by the paper, and set it on a cutting board.
• Use a 2 3/4 inch biscuit cutter to cut 9 rounds of cake. There’s no need to save the scraps, so enjoy them as a tasty snack!

Frost and Assemble the Cakes

• Make 3x the recipe for vanilla buttercream.
• Place one of the rounds of cake on a cake decorating turntable, and frost the top of the cake. Fill and frost with three more rounds of cake so that you have four stacked rounds of cake.
• Now frost the sides of the cake with a thin crumb coat of buttercream. This tallest one will be the hardest to assemble; keep your fingers on top of the cake to steady it as you frost the sides so it doesn’t topple over.
• Now cut out a small portion of cake from the top layer, and fit one of the tea light candles inside.
• Frost the sides of the cake with a final coat of buttercream, using a bench scraper to sweep it around the sides and smooth it out as much as possible. It doesn’t need to look perfect, since it will be covered with dripping white chocolate.
• Carefully slide a small offset spatula under the cake, again keeping your fingers on top of the cake to steady it, and transfer it to a serving plate. Frost the top edge of the cake, leaving the candle unfrosted.
• Now repeat the above steps with the remaining rounds of cake and buttercream, making a medium pillar candle with three rounds of cake and a short pillar candle with two rounds of cake.
• Place the plate with the frosted cakes in the refrigerator to chill for 15 minutes.

White Chocolate Ganache

• In a microwaveable bowl, combine the white chocolate chips or chopped chocolate and the cream. Microwave for two minutes on 50% power, then stir until smooth. Microwave for 20-30 more seconds on 50% power, if needed. For a less yellow color, add a few drops of “bright white” gel food coloring (optional).
• Use a spoon to drizzle the white chocolate ganache around the edges of the cakes, letting it drip down the sides. Be careful not to get the white chocolate on the candles. Then place the plate of cakes back in the refrigerator to chill for a few minutes before adding more drips.
• Continue to add layers of white chocolate drips, chilling the cakes for a few minutes each time, in between layers, until you’ve used up all the ganache and the cakes are covered in drips.
• Before serving, light the candles! You’ll get about 9 servings from these cakes.

Be sure to read all of my BAKING FAQs where I discuss ingredients, substitutions and common questions with cake making, so that you can be successful in your own baking! I also suggest reading these comprehensive posts on making Perfect American Buttercream, How to Stack, Fill, Crumb Coat and Frost Layer Cakes and How to Use Piping Bags.

Frequently Asked Questions

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