How To Make A Mrs Claus’ Bakery Cake

In this How To Make A Mrs Claus’ Bakery Cake Tutorial you’ll see how easy it is to emboss gold writing on a cake, make mini treats out of fondant and create a beautiful fondant bow. It’s a showstopping cake that will take centre stage at your next holiday celebration.

Out of all the holidays and themed occasions throughout the year, Christmas is my favourite! 

Recently the Australian Cake Decorating Network asked if I’d like to contribute a cake tutorial for their Christmas edition of Cake! Magazine. After reading their magazine for years, I was thrilled! They always showcase brilliant cake designers and modern cake tutorials so to have my work featured was a real honour. You can check out the magazine with my Mrs Claus’ Bakery cake here – my tutorial starts on page 27. Don’t forget to check out their past issues too, there are so many wonderful cake designs, interviews and tutorials.

A little background on how I came up with this design…I’ve wanted to create a Christmas cake which celebrates Mrs Claus for a while. It’s always the big guy in red who gets all the Christmas credit and Mrs Claus is often overlooked. When I imagine Mrs Claus up in the North Pole, I can see her baking up a storm and serving up an array of tasty Christmas treats. Hand painted fancy font on cakes is quite popular at the moment so that’s the first part of the cake I decided on. There are some amazing stamps available for embossing words on fondant but I also wanted everyone to be able to achieve this effect on their cake, even if you don’t own a set of stamps. If you do have a set of stamps, feel free to use those. The mini fondant treats are perfect to frame the words and the big green bow is vibrant and finishes off the cake nicely. Originally I wasn’t sure where the tails of the bow should sit; I didn’t want them hanging down obscuring the front of the cake so having them sit on the sides of the bow worked well.

Just a note for when you’re choosing a gold paint for this cake, please ensure that it is in fact edible. With so many gold dusts on the market, it can get confusing as to which is approved and fit for consumption – not just non toxic. Here I’ve used the Sweet Sticks Edible Art gold paint which I love because it’s a liquid paint already made up. You don’t need to faff around trying to achieve the right consistency, just give the bottle a shake and off you go! The Sunkissed Gold paint was perfect for this cake but there are lots of other colours in the range too.

My cakes are covered in Pettinice red fondant – how amazing is the colour?! There’s no way I could achieve this rich red by colouring it myself, so any time my cakes require red fondant I use the Pettinice red.

Just a note to say that this is not a sponsored post and I’m not being compensated to use these products. I use them because I love them and would happily recommend them to others.

For the purpose of this tutorial I’ve used cake dummies but the same process applies to ganache/buttercream cakes. At this stage keep the two cakes separate, we’ll stack them later on.

Mrs Claus’ Bakery Cake Tutorial

For this cake you will need:

6″ round x 6″ high cake covered in red fondant
4″ round x 3″ high cake covered in red fondant
Americolour Electric Green fondant
Ivory fondant
Brown fondant
Red fondant
White fondant
Edible Gold Paint
Sugar Glue
Tylose/CMC Powder
2cm circle cutter
Paintbrush
Exacto Knife
Paper Towel
Toothpick
Edible Black Marker
2.5cm Snowflake Plunger
Small Heart Plunger
Small Star Plunger
Brown Petal Dust
Pencil
Baking Paper
Cardboard
Royal Icing

Let’s get started!

How To Make  A Fondant Bow

The bow will take a day or two to dry, so we’ll start with that first. Add some tylose to the green fondant and mix it in well. Using the exacto knife, cut out a rectangle approximately 12cm long x 5cm wide x 3mm thickness.

Flip the rectangle over and apply a line of sugar glue to one end.

Pick up the other end of the rectangle and place it on top of the sugar glue. Gently press down to ensure they’re stuck together.

To create a pleat in the bow loop, first fold the edges down and then back up again (as shown below). Add a dab of sugar glue in the folds to secure them.

To prevent the bow loop from drooping, roll up some paper towel and insert it inside the loop. Next, use your finger to gently push in the outside of the loop – the aim here is to make a slight dent which helps create a bit of movement.

Trim off a little of the pleat with the exacto knife. We don’t want that part too long otherwise the middle of the bow will end up too wide.

Follow the same process to make a second bow loop. Brush a little sugar glue where you trimmed off the pleats and join the two bow loops together.

For the middle of the bow, cut out a rectangle approximately 7cm long x 2.5cm wide x 3mm thick.

To make this bow look as realistic as possible, we need to create some more movement. First, fold the rectangle in half, lengthways. Then fold the top and bottom back to create a pleat-like fold as shown below.

Apply a little sugar glue to the back of the strip and wrap it around the middle of the bow. Secure the ends at the back of the bow.

Pop the bow aside and allow it to dry for a day or two.

For the tails of the bow, cut out two rectangles approximately 6cm long x 5cm wide x 3mm thick. Cut a triangle out of the bottom of each tail.

Create pleats in the other end by folding the fondant back and forth. So the tails will sit neatly behind the bow, use your finger to gently flatten the pleats. To add movement to the tails, roll up some paper towel and pop it underneath. Curl up the ends a little, then pop them aside to dry. And that’s the bow done for now, we’ll attach the tails to the bow a little later on.

Next we’ll make the mini Christmas treats

Candy Canes

To make the candy canes, roll a long sausage of red and white fondant. Twist the two together; curve the top part around and trim off the bottom. This cake has three candy canes.

How to Make A Fondant Macaron

For the macarons, start with a small ball of green fondant. Use your finger to flatten it slightly. Brush a small amount of sugar glue around the outside of the flattened circle (just around the base). Roll out a thin sausage of fondant and adhere it around the circle. Trim off any excess.

To create the ‘feet’ of the macaron, use a toothpick to make tiny dots in the fondant sausage. Use the same above steps to make a second macaron shell, so now you will have a top and bottom macaron.

For the filling, roll a small ball of white fondant and use your finger to flatten it. Apply a little sugar glue to the middle of the macaron shells and place in the white filling. Use your finger to encourage the filling to come to the edge of the macaron.

Pop on the top shell and now you have a tasty looking macaron! Cutting the macarons in half made it easier to attach them to the cake later on, that way they’re not so bulky. Keep in mind they’re supposed to be a baked good, so it doesn’t matter if they’re not perfect or all exactly alike. I made about 3 macarons for this cake. Set them aside while we work on the rest of the treats.

How To Make The Reindeer Sugar Cookies

Roll out a little ivory fondant and use the 2cm circle cutter to cut out a few circles. Allow the circles to dry (it’s easier to draw on the eyes when the circles have dried). To make the reindeer antlers, add tylose to the brown fondant, mix it in well and roll out the brown fondant to approximately 2mm thickness. Use the snowflake plunger to cut out 2 snowflakes. Use the exacto knife to cut off the ‘antlers’ from the snowflake.

Apply some sugar glue to the back of the antlers and attach them to the top of the reindeer sugar cookie. Use the edible black marker to create the eyes and for the nose, roll a tiny ball of red fondant. Secure the nose in place with sugar glue. I made 3 reindeer sugar cookies for this cake.

How To Make Fondant Shortbread Biscuits

For the shortbread stars, roll out a little ivory fondant and use the star plunger to cut out 3 or 4 stars. Give the outside edges a light dusting with brown petal dust (remove the excess dust in a paper towel). Use the toothpick to add some dots – I usually give my shortbread a going over with a fork before baking so that’s what we’re aiming for here. Repeat the process for the shortbread hearts.

How To Make A Fondant Snowflake

Since it’s a bit chilly in the North Pole, we’ll add a few snowflakes to the mix. Add some tylose to white fondant and mix it in well. Roll it out thinly and use the snowflake plunger to cut out 3 snowflakes. This plunger can sometimes be a little fiddly so you can give it a light dusting with cornflour if you find the fondant is sticking to it. Pop the snowflakes aside to dry.

How To Emboss Gold Writing on A Cake

Next we’ll create the Mrs Claus’ Bakery text on the front of the cake. The font I used is called Bromello. I was able to find it in a search engine and download it to my computer for free. Work out how big you need the white fondant oval for the front of your cake (mine is approximately 13cm high), then use a pencil to trace the words Mrs Claus’ Bakery on to the front of the baking paper, ensuring the text fits nicely inside the oval.

Cut out an oval template from the cardboard. Take some white fondant, roll it out to approximately 2 – 3mm thickness, place the oval template on top and use the exacto knife to cut it out. Brush a light layer of sugar glue on the back of the oval and adhere it to the front of the cake.

Line up the baking paper with the white oval and use the Dresden tool to score over the outline of each word. The fondant underneath is still soft, so just apply a medium pressure with the tool. Remove the baking paper and you’ll see the words embossed in the fondant.

The outline is a little light/faint at this stage, so take your Dresden tool and go over the outline of each word again (this time without the baking paper). Each word is now more defined.

Now it’s time for the fun part – painting on the cake! With the Sweet Sticks Edible Art gold paint, just give the bottle a shake and paint it straight on to the cake.

Go slow and steady and stay within the lines. Now the cake is coming to life!

Next it’s time to arrange the mini treats around the words. Apply a little sugar glue (or piping gel/royal icing) to the back of each item and adhere them to the cake, following the outline of the oval. Continue all around the oval until you’re back at the start.

Next we’ll add the top tier to the cake. Add a small amount of royal icing to the top of the 6″ cake and place the 3″ cake on top. The royal icing will help ensure the two cakes stick together and stay in place.

Once the bow has completely dried, it’s time to attach it to the cake. Add some royal icing on the back of the bow and a little on the front of pleats of the bow tails.

Place the bow against the top tier and hold it in place until it’s secure. With the tails, place one on either side of the bow and hold it in place to secure it.

So we’ve completed the gorgeous green bow, made an array of mini treats and hand painted some fancy font on to the cake. The cake is now done!!

You can now step back and admire your beautiful Christmas cake! I hope you found the tutorial easy to follow and it’s a cake you enjoy making. If you do give it a go, I’d love to see! Feel free to tag me on Instagram or share it on my Facebook page so I can check it out.

My favourite cake to use under fondant is this Dark Chocolate Mud Cake. It’s a dense and tasty cake that can be baked ahead and improves in taste and texture over a few days.

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