Christmas 2018 cake

The challenge – make a Christmas cake with as few wires/toothpick supports as possible.

 I figured if I made as many figures out of molded chocolate as I could, I’d avoid a lot of wire supports. That left two problems. One, the weight of the figures would be too much for the cake. And two, I’d have to use a wire to attach the figure to the cake since I had to put it together before travel.

My first workaround was to use krispy treats (recipe below), for a base. This took some of the weight out of each figure.

The second issue of attaching each “ornament” to the cake was to cover part of the cake board, not with fondant, but with rolled out molded white chocolate, (recipe below).

The snowmen were made of white moldeling chocolate over the krispy treats and tasted better than gumpaste would have, but the figures themselves don’t look as nice. To these, I added a gumpaste nose, eyes, buttons and hat. Gumpaste is much easier for me to work with and I found I could be far more exacting.

The candy canes were made by using a gumpaste extruder to make the “ropes”. They could have been done by rolling out the fondant but it would have taken longer.

The penguins and elves are the figures with a half toothpick securing heads to shoulders. I found an online tutorial and followed along. Though one of the elves turned out a bit fat, trial and error. The second one on the far side was well proportioned.

Striping the bag of buttercream before applying the bottom border gave me the red, white, and green shell. I kind of liked that, but then wished I’d used different colors.

The small presents are merely molded chocolate shaped into squares. By rolling and cutting strips of contrasting colored chocolate, I made the “ribbons.

The fires were the coolest parts to do. Each set of logs rests on a small ball of chocolate to add height. I cut them in half lengthwise to add the flames.  The flames were made by melting Isomalt in a stainless steel pan then poured it on my silicone mat. After adding a drop of food coloring to the base and using a toothpick to swirl the color a little bit, I used the toothpick to “draw” the sugar upward to mimic flames.

It only took a few minutes for the sugar to cool, then I placed it between the halved chocolate and closed it up. A small gumpaste tool let me “carve” lines in the chocolate after warming with my hands. This made it look more authentic.



The tree was the most fun part to do. The base is made of krispy treats, shaped into a cone. I melted candy melts and added (much) green gel dye to darken. Slathering it on the krispy treats while the chocolate was still liquid gave me a very solid base once hardened. A mold obtained online was used to make the leaves. Instead of filling the entire cavity with chocolate, I just used small areas to make the “leaves. While the chocolate was still soft, I started at the bottom and pressed each into the base. Once finished, I made ornaments from chocolate and while still warm, attached them to the tree.

In order to attach the tree to the cake without a wire, I rolled out white chocolate to make a “blanket of snow.”

One of the problems I ran into was trying to attach fondant decorations to a chocolate base. Melted chocolate worked well for that.

I used pearl dust to add a finishing touch to the figures and presents using a soft paint brush.

All in all, it was great fun. The party-goers took some of the figures home as decorations and the cake was good. If I do another like it, I would thin the layer of white chocolate used as "snow" on top of the cake. It was a little thick.

Link for gumpaste figures here