Today I have some fabulous Christmas cake inspiration for you with this adorable Santa’s Workshop Christmas cake. This is a buttercream frosted cake, decorated with piped buttercream trees, and a house made of candy and sprinkles. An edible candy cane cake topper complete with North Pole street signs is the perfect sweet finish to this festive holiday cake.
With Christmas just a few weeks away, it’s time to start planning your holiday baking. And this adorable Christmas cake hits all the right notes. With a few sprinkles and a little basic piping know-how, you can easily create this cake at home for your holiday meal. Your friends and family will feel like they’ve just taken a trip to visit Santa at the North Pole!
Looking for more high altitude Christmas cake recipes? Don’t miss this cute little snowman cake, hot chocolate cake with homemade marshmallows, and a chocolate peppermint North Pole cake.
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Ingredients
- Frosted Layer Cake. Any flavor will do, but a taller cake is better. Personally, I think my design would have looked better if I’d added a 4th layer on top, rather than just stacking 3 layers of cake. A taller cake allows for a higher, more dramatic roof on your Santa’s Workshop.
- Extra Buttercream. You’ll need some extra buttercream for piping the roof, smoke puffs and trees.
- Green Gel Food Coloring.
- Candy Canes and Peppermint Candies.
- Sprinkles and Sugar Pearls.
- Piping Bags and Tips.
See the recipe card at the end of the post for the full ingredients list and instructions.
Making this Santa’s Workshop Christmas Cake is really easier than it might look, with a few simple steps. Once you have your cake frosted, you can start decorating immediately.
Instructions
- DOOR. Cut or break pieces of candy canes, and place on the cake for the door. Use a large sugar pearl for the doorknob.
- WINDOWS. Press two peppermint candies on either side of the door, and surround them with small sugar pearls.
- HOUSE. Use a toothpick to lightly trace the outline of your house. Place small sugar pearls along the outline to form the edges of the house and chimney.
- ROOF. Fit a piping bag with a couple and tip #199. Fill with white buttercream, and pipe swirls along the roof’s edge.
- SMOKE PUFFS. Switch to tip #12, and pipe white buttercream along the top of the cake to look like puffs of smoke floating out of the chimney.
- TREES. Squeeze most of the white buttercream out of the bag, but leave a little inside. Switch to tip #22. Tint 1 cup of the buttercream to your desired shade of green, fill the piping bag, and pipe the trees.
- ORNAMENTS. Decorate the trees with various sizes and colors of sugar pearls and sprinkles.
- TOPPER. For the candy cane topper, I actually found the little sugar street signs at a local craft store. Since I didn’t intend for them to be eaten, I used hot glue to glue them onto a wrapped candy cane. For an edible topper, you would need to unwrap the candy can and use stiff royal icing to adhere the signs to the candy cane. You could also make a very cute (non-edible) topper by making street signs from card stock and glueing them to a candy cane.
A Green and White Rosette Christmas Cake
For a little more Christmas cake inspiration, I’ve also included this beautiful green and white cake. The design is intended to be a bit reminiscent of a wreath, with the trailing rosettes up the side, and the white chocolate bow.
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Santa’s Workshop Christmas Cake
All recipes on Curly Girl Kitchen are developed for high altitude at 5,280 feet. See FAQs for adjusting to higher or lower elevations.
Ingredients
- 1 – 3 or 4 layer cake, filled and frosted
- 2 cups Perfect American Buttercream
- green gel food coloring
- candy canes and peppermint candies
- sprinkles and sugar pearls, in a variety of colors and sizes
- piping bags
- piping tips, #s 199, 12, 22
Instructions
- CAKESo you can use absolutely any flavor of cake that you like, frosted with white/vanilla buttercream. Mine is a Red Velvet Cake. I wouldn't recommend using a cream cheese buttercream for the decorating.Photographed here is a 6-inch 3-layer cake (using 1/2 my recipe for red velvet cake). To be honest, this design works better with a taller cake, and I wish I'd added a 4th layer so that the roof of the house was higher and more dramatic. So a smaller cake pan size with a taller height looks best. If you bake your cake in 8 or 9 inch pans, you'll have a hard time doing this design since your cake won't be tall enough.I frosted the cake with my Perfect American Buttercream, and used about 1 1/2 – 2 cups for the decorating. Once your cake is frosted, you can immediately begin decorating.
- DOORCut or break pieces of candy canes, and place on the cake for the door. Use a large sugar pearl for the doorknob.
- WINDOWSPress two peppermint candies on either side of the door for your windows.Place small sugar pearls around the candies (using tweezers if you need to).
- HOUSEUse a toothpick to lightly trace the outline of your house. Place small sugar pearls along the outline to form the edges of the house and chimney.
- ROOFFit a piping bag with a couple and tip #199. Fill with white buttercream, and pipe swirls along the roof's edge.
- SMOKE PUFFSSwitch to tip #12, and pipe white buttercream along the top of the cake to look like puffs of smoke floating out of the chimney.
- TREESSqueeze most of the buttercream out of the bag, but leave a little inside. Switch to tip #22.Tint 1 cup of the buttercream to your desired shade of green, and fill the piping bag with green buttercream. (Leaving some of the white buttercream in the bag creates a more realistic mix of colors, like snow on branches.)Starting at the bottom of the cake, pipe the tree branches, working from the bottom to the top.
- ORNAMENTSFinish your design by decorating the trees (and the edge of the roof) with various sizes and colors of sugar pearls and sprinkles.
- TOPPERFor the candy cane topper, I actually found the little sugar street signs at a local craft store. Since I didn't intend for them to be eaten, I used hot glue to glue them onto a wrapped candy cane. For an edible topper, you would need to unwrap the candy can and use stiff royal icing to adhere the signs to the candy cane.You could also make a very cute (non-edible) topper by making street signs from cardstock and glueing them to a candy cane.
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