This easy Holiday Cake is beautiful, tasty, and surprisingly simple!
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An easy and stunning Holiday Cake!
This Christmas I am all about easy Christmas Desserts! I made the Snow Ball Cupcakes, Easy Chocolate Truffles, the gorgeous Sugared Cranberries and now this beautiful cake!
It always amazes me what a few sprinkles and some simple piping can do to transform a cake.
A Christmas Cake everyone will love!
How to make this holiday cake:
- Make the cake layers using my easy white cake recipe (adding crushed candy canes if you want!)
- Make 2 batches of my delicious buttercream frosting, adding M&Ms to one of the batches
- Crumb coat the cake with the M&M frosting
- Pipe on the final coat rosettes, decorate with leftover M&Ms and sprinkles
- Enjoy!
This Christmas cake is one that I dreamt about making- literally! I woke up thinking I should make a simple cake with red and green candies in the frosting.
For this recipe I use a box cake mix and add a few extra ingredients to make it taste extra yummy and not like it came from a box!
How can I make a box cake mix better?
I like to add sour cream, heavy cream, and an extra egg or egg white (if making a white cake).
Why did my cake sink in the middle when I took it out of the oven?
There are several factors that could cause this. Either the oven temperature is too high, opening the oven door while it is baking, or over mixing your cake batter- or you have your baking rack not in the right position. I keep my racks at the 2nd to the lowest position when baking cakes- if not my cakes will sink!
A Christmas Cake that is tasty and surprisingly simple!
What’s your favorite Christmas dessert? Let me know in the comments below!
If you like this recipe make sure to check out my Snowman Truffles, and my Candy Cane Cupcakes!
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Holiday Cake
Ingredients
- Butter for greasing the cake rounds
- 3 Tbs flour for dusting the cake rounds
- 1 box white cake mix I used Pillsbury brand
- ½ cup vegetable oil
- 2 tbs vanilla
- ¾ cup sour cream
- ¾ cup heavy cream
- 4 egg whites
- 2-3 Crushed Candy Canes optional
- 3 6 ” cake rounds*
- 2 batches of my easy vanilla butter cream frosting
- ¾ cup holiday colored chocolate candies I used M&Ms
- Holiday Sprinkles I used a Wilton Holiday Sprinkle Mix
- 1 M Piping Tip
- Piping Bags
Instructions
How to make a Christmas Cake:
- Preheat oven to 325°F. Prep your cake rounds by covering the inside of the pans with a light layer of butter and then dusting with flour. I like to use my fingers to make sure the butter gets in all seams.
- Mix together, either by hand or in a stand mixer, the oil, vanilla, sour cream, heavy cream and egg whites. Then mix in the boxed cake mix. Mix until only just combined- overmixing will cause the cake to sink in the middle. Gently stir in the crushed candy canes if using.
- Divide the batter between the 3 cake rounds.
- Bake for 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Make sure to bake all the cakes on the same oven rack so they bake evenly.
- Let the cakes cool for 5 minutes then flip upside down onto a wire cooling rack and remove the pans. They should come out easily.
- Let the cakes cool completely before frosting.
How to make M&M frosting:
- Whip up 2 batches of my Vanilla Butter Cream frosting, divide into two bowls.
- In one bowl stir in M&Ms, leaving the other bowl as just plain frosting.
How to assemble cake:
- Scoop about ½ cup of M&M frosting onto the bottom layer of the cake and smooth into an even layer.
- Place the second cake layer on top and then use the rest of the M&M frosting to make a crumb coat on the cake. The crumb coat won’t be very smooth since there are M&Ms in it but that’s okay because our piping will cover it up.
- Once the crumb coat is on place the cake in the refrigerator for 10 minutes to let it harden slightly.
- After 10 minutes pipe on the rosettes using the 1M piping tip. Decorate the top with extra M&Ms and fun sprinkles.
- Enjoy!
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