Christmas Character Cake
Steps involved
Make cake layers
Make buttercream (no color)
Split and color buttercream
Assemble and crumb coat cake
Chill cake
Transfer design outline to cake
Pipe on cake
READ BEFORE CONTINUING: The following recipes are scaled to make the cake pictured above -- a 4 layer cake made with 6-inch round cake layers. If you wish to make a smaller cake, please scale down these recipes.
recipes used
1 - 1.5 batches Italian meringue buttercream
I made this buttercream vanilla flavored by adding 1 tablespoon of vanilla to my 1.5x batch (can add less or more to taste)
Colors used
To get these colors, I used Wilton's Color Right Food Coloring System.*
For the icing:
The colors may differ depending on how much icing you're coloring and the starting color of your buttercream (certain butter brands are more white or yellow which can make the buttercream whiter or more yellow). These are the amounts I used and should get you close.
Black Icing:
Hershey's Special Dark Cocoa Powder - I use just enough to get a dark base to start with
Black: 75 drops
Red Icing:
Red: 64 drops
Crimson: 70 drops
Tan Icing:
Yellow: 1 drop
Brown: <1 drop (I touched a toothpick to the color and touched the icing with it)
Orange: <1 drop
Yellow Icing:
I took the remaining tan icing and added:
Yellow: 4 drops
Orange Icing:
I took the remaining yellow icing and added:
Red: 3 drops
Pink Icing:
I took the remaining orange icing and added:
Pink: 4 drops
Supplies/tools
To find the tools I use for almost every cake I make and decorate (including pans, cake boards, icing smoothers, etc.), click here.
The supplies/tools below are specifically for decorating this cake, which I used in addition to the ones in the link above.*
*Some of these links may be affiliate. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. I earn a small amount from some purchases, however, this does not affect my recommendations.
Decorating the cake
After the cake has been assembled and iced:
Refrigerate until completely chilled.
Print out your image of choice. The image I used is shown below (click on the image to enlarge).
Place the image on your counter and place a piece of parchment paper on top. (Make sure your parchment paper is no taller than the height of your cake)
Using a piping bag with a small round piping tip and any icing color of your choosing (I used black), trace the image onto the parchment paper.
Lightly press the parchment paper, icing side facing the cake, onto the cake and peel away to reveal the outline of your image.
Using the same piping bag, pipe small black dots on top of your traced design to create the outlines.
Fill in any black sections (except the eyes) with small black dots of icing. Make sure each dot you pipe is right up against the previous dot so there are no gaps.
Take a piping bag with your next color (I chose red) and pipe small dots in all of the red sections until completely filled.
Continue piping dots in your desired colors until the design is completely filled in.
Take a piping bag, with white icing and Ateco tip 18, and pipe blobs of icing on the rest of the cake until the entire cake is covered.
Slice and enjoy :)
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