BEGINNER BAKER SERIES: DIY Simple Christmas Cake

As the Christmas season is here. I love to show my appreciation for friends and family through cake-giving. So here I share my simple Christmas Cake recipe for other Beginner Baker.

I am not a professional baker nor even an amateur. I started baking just a year ago. This is my kind of therapeutic way to deal with one significant change in my life: from Career Woman to Stay at Home Mom (SAHM). I learned from many sources, most of them are online. I don’t favor one or two, but I collected many sources to support the baking idea in my head. As a beginner baker, I would love to have a collection of reference of how to make a beginner baking product, from the cake ingredients to cake decoration. Instead of hoping people make one for me, why not share what I already collected. 

Beginner Baker Series – 2

• Cake                      : Chocolate Cake
• Frosting               : Cream Cheese Frosting + Crushed Oreo
• Color                     : White, Green, Gold
• Theme                  : Christmas Tree, Snow, Gold
• Occasion              : Christmas

FIRST: “THE CAKE” (Chocolate Cake & Cream Cheese Frosting)

My to-go basic cake is always chocolate cake! It easy and everyone loves it. I am using Gemma Stafford’s recipe from Bigger Bolder Baking for the cake as well as the cream cheese frosting. You can get the recipe here!

My special note for this cake:

• This cake using 6″ round baking pan. I used 3 cake to get the medium height. I used Wilton Easy Layer – 5 Cake Pans.
• Because I only use 3 out of 5 cake pans, there are several leftover batter that I use to make “the loaf cake version” (please see part FOURTH of this blog post).
• I put cream cheese frosting between layer and add crushed Oreo cookies before adding other layer.
• For a sweet tooth person, you can add more sugar to this Chocolate Cake recipe up to 1 1/4 Cup or 1 1/2 Cup. You can even add more chocolate (either cocoa powder or bittersweet one). This recipe is versatile (and always works)!!.

SECOND: “THE CHRISTMAS TREE MERINGUE COOKIES”

What is Christmas without the Christmas Tree! So, to complete my snowy decorated cake, I decided to put a Christmas Tree cookies as a decoration for my Christmas Cake. This time, I choose a meringue cookies instead of making buttercream tree. I just found out that making “meringue cookies” is the easiest and fastest way to create any cake decoration you desired. The ingredients also very simple:

• 2 Tbsp of Meringue Powder
• 2/3 Cup Sugar (personally this is too sweet for me, so I modified by using only 1/3 Cup)
• 1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract (optional)
• 1 Pinch Salt
• 1/4 Cup Water (this all you need, don’t add more!!)
• green gel food coloring

The making process only take less than 30 minutes, you can watch this video of Jemma from Cupcake Jemma when she made her Christmas Meringue Cookies. Her technique on how to make green stripes on cookies is awesome! The only difference between my Christmas cookies and Jemma’s is instead of using “egg whites”, I use meringue powder. I also use gold pearl candy and colorful sprinkle to decorate my Christmas meringue cookie.

THIRD: “THE SIMPLE FROSTING TECHNIQUE FOR CAKE DECORATION”

It is a simple Christmas Cake. So to keep the simplicity, I used simple pipping technique. I used Wilton Tip 32 to make the bottom border and Wilton Tip 233 to make the snowy effect on top of the cake. To put all together, I arranged 6 of my Christmas Meringue Cookies as my cake topper. Then I add some gold pearl candy to compliment my frosting border.

FOURTH: “THE LOAF CAKE & WHIPPING CREAM FROSTING”

As I mentioned before, I had leftover batter from this Chocolate Cake recipe. Thus, I decided to make a loaf cake out of it. I used AmericanBaker 9 x 13″ loaf baking pan. The leftover batter only make 1/2 of the baking pan. So, to make the normal height of my loaf cake, I cut the cake horizontal into 2 pieces. Then I put my whipping cream frosting and some leftover crushed Oreo cookies between those two layers. Also add more whipping cream outside the cake. Voila! Another version of the cake. From one batter you can create two version of Christmas Cake.