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Copyright © 2025 Foodies Only
Copyright © 2025 Foodies Only
5 min
15/12/2025
This is a handy guide that will help you add some flair to your Christmas cake with simple items that are easily accessible from your pantry. Each section details how to use these pantry items to create cake decorations, visual accents, and textures, which are often left unresolved when using a traditional style of decorating.
Using the items you already have means no more running to the store for expensive decorations, but rather using items that you have in your pantry to achieve the same results without the hassle and frustration of complicated decorating techniques. You can create a warm and inviting feeling for your Christmas cake just by using simple ingredients that you probably already have in your kitchen.
Covering a cake with nuts suggests that the baker has invested considerable time and effort into it. Whether using almonds, cashews, pistachios, or walnuts, there are numerous possibilities to create visually appealing designs when placing nuts on the surface of the cake. Nuts should not be scattered across the top of the cake randomly; rather, they should be arranged in an organised manner, taking into account their unique attributes.
Ground nuts can be used to create a textured finish around the edge of a cake by creating a nut crumb, thus providing an intentional appearance of a finished edge around the cake. The colour of nuts will become richer when toasted before being applied to a cake. Therefore, applying toasted nuts to a cake will give it a warm and cosy appearance reminiscent of winter months.
Cocoa powder basically works as edible makeup for your cake. If your cake looks a little off (uneven, dull, etc.), a sprinkle of cocoa can immediately make it look like it has just been baked and is ready to eat.
If you want to add more to your cake with cocoa powder, use a stencil—use a napkin, cut out a simple shape (i.e. star, heart, tree), and sift cocoa through it. As soon as you remove the napkin, your cake will look like it has just been made by a professional baker. You can also combine cocoa powder with a little bit of water (just enough to moisten), and paint the sides of your cake with this mixture to give your cake the appearance of 3D-like depth, which gives the cake a more structured feeling visually.
Icing sugar is the easiest way ever to decorate cakes for Christmas. Simply sift it over your cake, and voila! Your cake looks as if it has just been blanketed with freshly fallen snow. There are numerous ways you can decorate using icing sugar.
Using icing sugar is also one of the best ways to disguise cracks and imperfections. If your cake did not bake evenly or had a small crack due to baking, icing sugar will be your best friend for hiding those imperfections! Simply apply generously to the edges and taper off towards the centre of the cake, creating an illusion of depth without adding any volume.
Cake is most commonly associated with muffins, and people tend to think that jam (fruit spread) is only used on toast, when, in fact, jam is also an excellent glaze for decorating cakes. You can create a jam glaze by microwaving one tablespoon of jam, such as strawberry, apricot or mixed fruit, for 10-15 seconds until it thins out and then brushing it onto your cake. This will give your cake a beautiful, shiny finish with colour. By combining two different jams, you can achieve a marbled top that looks much better than anything you will buy at the grocery store.
The most attractive cake designs involve layering simple, everyday ingredients together. For instance, using a jar of jam with a cocoa stencil design on top, placing nuts on the perimeter of the cake, and sprinkling icing sugar over the nuts or using cocoa to coat the side of the cake, drizzling jam in the centre, and arranging nuts in a circular fashion around the edge of the cake. The secret is to create contrast with texture, while using easily available pantry items to create beautiful cake decorations.
When decorating your cake, if you prefer a more formal appearance, keep the centre of your cake free from decorative elements and reserve all your embellishments for the outer edges.
The attractive aspect of a Christmas cake is that it is warmly inviting rather than perfectly polished. The smudges, uneven edges and lumps of nuts on the surface show that it was made in someone's home and not a catalogue. The emphasis is on utilising ingredients that you would have found in your pantry to achieve the appearance of a homemade cake with its own unique character.
