Christmas Tree Cake
Merry Christmas! To celebrate the big day, I want to share a brand new recipe for a vanilla Christmas Tree Cake. The cake is very delicate and flavorful and is paired with a rich, creamy buttercream frosting. On top are three waffle cone Christmas trees covered in green frosting and a dusting of powdered sugar “snow”. This recipe is a bit more involved than some of my others, so be sure to read through the whole recipe before diving in.
Quality Ingredients
In order to have the best quality baked goods, one needs to use high quality ingredients. This is especially true for the Christmas Tree Cake. Lately, I’ve been using King Arthur flour, which is a good brand, but I still much prefer local, organic flours whenever I can get my hands on them!
I also tend to be very fussy about the sourcing of my dairy products. Organic Valley is one brand I can always trust for their high quality, local foods. The organic cows get to spend time on pasture whenever weather allows and the farmers from the Organic Valley Co-op take such great care of their animals. Try using some of their butter or half and half in this recipe and see what a difference top-notch ingredients can make!
How do I make the Christmas Trees?
Making the trees on a Christmas Tree Cake is actually very simple. All you need are three waffle cones (or more if you prefer). Once the cake is frosted (see recipe below for directions), carefully break off pieces at the opening of each cone until it is your desired height. I chose to make one short one and two tall ones. Then arrange them on the cake and fill a piping bag fitted with Wilton Tip 18 with green frosting. Other small star and flower tips should work well too, so feel free to experiment with some different ones to find what you like best!
Starting at the bottom of each cone, pipe stars all over them. Sometimes it can be a little tricky to frost the trees if they are all on the cake at once. After you have the cones arranged where you want them, it might help to pick up each one to frost them that way. If you want to get extra fancy, add large sprinkles as ornaments. When the trees are all done, put some powdered sugar in a mesh strainer and sprinkle it over the top of the cake to look like snow!
Cake Decorating Tools
As I continue making more cakes, I always seem to be acquiring new tools and supplies. I’d like to share with you my favorite tools that I use and find most helpful. The links I’m posting here are not affiliated–just personal recommendations.
By far, my favorite cake tool is my 6-inch Ateco offset spatula. It’s extremely cute and so handy for all sorts of things during the cake decorating process. Plus I can use it throughout my kitchen for other uses too.
To get the sides of my cake perfectly smooth, I use an Ateco icing smoother. I hold it at a 45 degree angle against the cake. As I rotate the cake on my Wilton turn table, the smoother does the work to even out the frosting.
However, before we get to that step, it’s important to get an even layer of frosting all around the cake. Use Wilton tip 789 to pipe wide ribbons of frosting all the way around the circumference. You could also use the offset spatula to apply frosting, but it isn’t always as evenly distributed.
When the cake is almost perfectly smooth, I place a damp Viva paper towel on the cake and use a fondant smoother to iron it out. Although I don’t like Viva towels for everyday use, they are the only ones that work for cake frosting because they have no pattern. Hopefully this gives you some guidance if you’re looking for some good products to help you up your cake game! I also plan to put together a full frosting tutorial in the future!
More Cake Recipes to Try
I hope you enjoy this festive Christmas Tree Cake! If you give it a try, I’d love to hear about it in the comments and and see your creations on Instagram (tag @roots_and_rosemary). Here’s a list of some of my other cake recipes to try out as well. Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas to you, also. Love the blog!
Thank you so much!!