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Christmas Cake Decorations

As we approach Christmas, I wanted to do a round up of fun christmas cakes I’ve made in the past! I’m hoping this will help spark some ideas for your own Christmas Cake decorations, and inspire some amazing christmas cakes this year.

Below are 15 awesome and (relatively) easy christmas cakes that are sure to be the star of your holiday celebrations.

Easy Christmas Lights Cake

This Easy Christmas Lights cake is one of my favorite christmas cake decorations. All you need is some dark green frosting and some almond M&Ms!! I used a small round piping tip and a small piping bag to get the string of my christmas lights nice and smooth.

However, if you don’t have those on hand you can always use a freezer ziploc bag, and snip off one of the corners.

image of easy christmas tree lights cake made with M&Ms

Simple Present Cake

Baking for someone can be a great gift, in and of itself! This simple present cake is definitely a play on that idea.

To be totally honest, I’d be just as happy receiving a cake as a gift! I kept the decoration of this Christmas gift cake simple by using premade fondant to make the ribbon.

image of Christmas present cake

Floral Christmas Cake

Another simple way to decorate a Christmas cake is with flowers! To make this floral Christmas cake, simply add fresh, organic flowers to the top of your favorite layer cake.

There are a few things you should know before you add flowers to a cake though!

I recommend wrapping the flower stems with floral tape before adding them to your cake. This will prevent the fluids from the stems of the flower from leaching into your cake.

I also add a few gold brush strokes around the cake to make it feel even more festive.

chocolate engagement cake decorated with edible gold and fresh roses photo

Winter Wonderland Cake

Maybe you’re an artist, and you feel like getting creative with frosting. This winter wonderland cake is the perfect way to let your creativity flow, and channel your inner Bob Ross.

I like to use these palette knives to spread buttercream for this style of painted cake. They help you create unique textures and patterns, which are great for adding the mountains and trees to this cake.

image of winter wonderland cake with pretty blue cake layers

A Santa Cake

Christmas cakes really don’t get jollier than this Santa Cake! This cake uses buttercream to create good old Saint Nick. His fluffy beard is piped with a Wilton 1M frosting tip, along with the white fur on his hat.

The key to this cake is making super red buttercream! I recommend making it in advance and letting it sit for a few days in fridge. The color will deepen overtime.

image of santa cake

A Reindeer Cake

Reindeer are almost as important to Christmas as Santa, so I wanted to include a fun reindeer cake.

I ended up adding some eyelashes to this reindeer cake, along with a sassy little smile. You can omit those and add a red nose if you want to go for more of a Rudolph vibe 🙂

This little reindeer cake is made with peanut butter and chocolate, and is sure to light up any holiday party.

image of reindeer cake and chelsey white of chelsweets

Festive Striped Christmas Cake

Another cute idea for Christmas cake decorations is to add green and red stripes to the sides of a layer cake! That’s what I did for this festive striped Christmas cake, and I was obsessed with end result!

I highly recommend using a couple flat piping tips to create those thick stripes. They make the process a lot easier!

image of festive striped christmas cake

Christmas Cranberry and Orange Bundt Cake

If layer cakes aren’t your thing, I recommend making a festive bundt cake! This orange and cranberry bundt cake is bursting with citrus flavor, which is balanced beautifully by the tartness of the cranberries.

Better yet, this bundt cake takes hardly any time to decorate! You simply drizzle a fresh orange glaze over it, toss on some sugared cranberries, and it’s ready to go.

My tip is to use a fun bundt pan to bake it in, like this one made by Nordic Ware.

image of sliced orange bundt cake

A Festive Yule Log Cake

A fun spin on the classic buche de noel, this Festive Yule Log Cake (or as I like to call it, a holiday tree stump cake :P) is a ton of fun to make! It’s a rolled cake, so it has vertical layers when you cut into it.

It’s frosted with a decadent dark chocolate ganache, which sets nice and firm, and keeps those cake layers in place. Throw on some marzipan mushrooms and some chopped pistachio moss, and you’re ready to party!

image of festive yule log cake

An Ugly Christmas Sweater Inspired Cake

If you feel comfortable with piping bags, you could always tackle my knitted sweater cake! This christmas cake design is inspired by all those festive Christmas sweaters we see this time of year.

In full disclosure, this cake decoration is a bit challenging. The repetitive pattern doesn’t leave much room for error.

However, every cake has a back, and if you run into any issues with the pattern, you can always make that the back of your cake.

image of knitted sweater cake being piped with buttercream

A Gingerbread House Cake

While everyone is making gingerbread houses, why not make a gingerbread house cake??

You can let your holiday spirit soar as you frost gingerbread cake layers with spiced cinnamon buttercream, and decorate with all the best gumdrop decorations.

image of gingerbread house cake make by chelsweets

Wintery Snowflake Cake

Maybe your favorite part of the holiday season is snow! If that’s you, consider making this striped snowflake cake!

It has some serious winter vibes, and the buttercream snowflakes on the side are almost too cute to handle. I used a plastic stencil from amazon to make them, which easily helps you add a wintery touch to any cake.

image of striped snowflake cake

A Grinch Cake

If you aren’t the biggest fan of the holidays, this may be the Christmas cake for you! This Grinch cake is decorated based on the original 1966 version of the grinch.

His homemade buttercream and edible compost cookie dough filling are so delicious, they’ll help your heart grow 3x in size this Christmas.

image of chelsey white with grinch cake for a christmas cake decorations list of ideas

Chocolate Red Wine Cake

For most of us, the holidays are all the more cheerful with a drink or two. If you love red wine, this is the cake for you. It’s made with chocolate cake layers soaked with red wine simple syrup, red wine frosting, and a red wine ganache.

A slice of this chocolate red wine cake is sure to help you get through the holidays…one bite at a time 🙂

photo of chelsey white with spilled red wine chocolate cake

Mini Christmas Tree Cakes

My final Christmas cake decoration idea is actually a mini cake!

These little Christmas tree cakes are made with stacked cupcakes! They’re easy to make, and the perfect little treat to whip up with friends, or with kids. Just be sure to have lots of pretty sprinkles on hand to decoration them.

image of mini christmas tree cake

Let Me Know What You Think!

If you try any of these Christmas cake decorations, I’d love to hear what think of it! Please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below.

Vicki

Sunday 15th of December 2019

Hey Chelsea! Love all your work, the grinch link is not working ?

Chelsweets

Sunday 15th of December 2019

Hi Vicki,

Long story, but my grinch cake post isn't going live until 12/20!! I just linked it early because I was worried it would forget!! If you want to look at it before then, shoot me an email at [email protected] and I'll send you it early :) So sorry for any confusion!

Emma B

Thursday 12th of December 2019

Thank you for listing the metric measurement for your recipes. Do you use cups or do you weight your ingredients when baking?

Chelsweets

Sunday 15th of December 2019

Hi Emma,

I try!! haha I have a lot of followers from around the world, so I always try to list metric measurements in my recipes :)

I usually weigh out my flour and sugar, but use cups for my wet ingredients. It's just what's easiest for me when I bake, but either way will work. Hope that helps, happy baking!

Rachel Boothe

Thursday 12th of December 2019

I love all of these cakes. I have a question. Would the method you used to get the super red butter cream also work to get super red royal icing?