I do like eating Christmas Cake, and by that I mean the traditional one made with fruit and topped with marzipan and fondant icing, but it is not something I often buy or make mainly because not many people in my family enjoy eating it. I have fond memories of my Nanny making one every Christmas when I was a child, and she would top it with tiny christmas trees, a snowman, sleigh and Father Christmas, and she would fork up her icing to make it look textured and like snow. However, she would always make one which was too big and would have to freeze most of it shortly after Christmas each year!
I wanted to make a Christmas Cake that used some elements of a more traditonal cake while embracing some newer ones. I wanted to incorporate some peppermint and white chocolate into the sponge and buttercream and I wanted the sponge to look festive too. Having seen some cakes on pinterest which contained multi coloured cake pops, I wanted to try and insert some burst of green and red into each sponge, which would have worked more successfuly had I used better, more intense food colouring. However, hopefully you can see what I was attempting to do! I made the red and green swirly cake pops using a peppermint flavoured cake batter, and the sponges were made using some white chocolate spread, and the buttercream was white chocolate flavoured with some crushed peppermint candy canes mixed through it. It was delicious and I covered it with fondant – not my strong point as I do not use it very often so I used a very simple design and thought it did not look toooo bad for me at least!
So here is my Peppermint & White Chocolate Christmas Cake
- *FOR THE CAKE POPS*
- 50g unsalted butter
- 50g caster sugar
- 50g self raising flour
- 1 egg
- 1 tsp peppermint essence
- green food colouring
- *FOR THE CAKE*
- red food colouring
- 150g unsalted butter
- 200g caster sugar
- 200g self raising flour
- 4 eggs
- 50g white chocolate spread
- *FOR THE BUTTERCREAM*
- 100g unsalted butter, softened
- 200g icing sugar, sifted
- 2 tbsp cream cheese
- 100g white chocolate
- 3 peppermint candy canes
- *FOR THE DECORATION*
- 1 x 500g pack of white Renshaw ready to roll fondant icing
- 1 x 250g pack of red Renshaw ready to roll fondant icing
- 1 x 250g pack of green Renshaw ready to roll fondant icing
- 1 tbsp apricot jam
- edible silver balls
- icing sugar for dusting the work surface
- **To make the cake pops:
- Pre heat the oven to 180oC / 160o C (fan)
- Cream together the butter and sugar until pale and creamy
- Add the eggs and peppermint essence and beat together for a couple of minutes
- Add the flour and fold through until all combined
- Divide the batter equally into two bowls, in one add some green food colouring and in the other some red. You want to add enough to make the batters turn a bright red/green
- Add the batters to your cake pop machine/baking trays and cook according to the instructions
- Allow to cool once cooked
- **To Make The Cake:
- Grease and line 2 x 8cm cake tins
- Cream together the butter, white chocolate spread and sugar until pale and creamy
- Add the eggs and beat together for a couple of minutes
- Add the flour and fold through until all combined
- Add enough of the cake batter to each tin to just cover the bottom of each
- Then add your cake pops to each tin - I added 5 to each of alternate colours
- Add the rest of the cake batter to each tin to cover the cake pops
- Cook in the oven for about 22 minutes until cooked through
- Allow to cool completely
- **To Make The Buttercream
- Melt the white chocolate
- Crush the candy canes with a rolling pin
- Place the butter in a bowl and beat until smooth
- Carefully add the icing sugar, little by little until a smooth paste forms
- Add the cream cheese and white chocolate and beat until smooth
- Fold in the candy canes
- **To Assemble
- Sandwich the two sponges with some of the buttercream
- Then carefully using a serrated knife, cut around the cake to make it smooth and the same all the way around
- Then using the rest of the buttercream, cover the sides and top of the cake with it which will help the fondant to stick top the cake
- Dust a work surface with icing sugar and roll out your white fondant with a dusted rolling pin, ensuring that you turn the fondant frequently to avoid it sticking
- Once it has been rolled out big enough to cover the cake, roll it up over the rolling pin and then drape it over the cake
- Working quickly, smooth the foindant over the cake being careful not to let it crease or over lap.
- Trim the excess
- Once the fondant had been smoothed over, roll out your green and red fondants side by side - dusting the work surface with more ising sugar as required
- Cut out different sized stars (I did small and medium and 1 large ) and add to the cake using melted jam and a pastry brush.
- I then added silver balls to add some extra festive sparkle
The cake tasted delicious – the burst of peppermint from the coloured cake pops were delicate and not over powering throughout the sponge, and the minty white chocolate buttercream with the crunchy crushed candy canes within it was lovely. My icing may not be perfect, but the flavours from the cake was really good and very Christmassy and even with the icing was not too sweet or sickly. Yum!
**Of course you dont have to add the coloured cake pops, just make the sponge as per my method as the buttercream is minty enough. However, if you like the taste of peppermint you like could add a tsp of the peppermint essence to the cake batter aswell.
I was sent the items below from Renshaw for the purpose of creating a Christmas baked gift to be entered into their Christmas Baking Gift Competition. The recipe and design of the cake and its decoration is my own. 
oooh jenny this looks yummy and for someone that doesnt like christmas cake (yes i know there’s always one) i am thinking of trying this out for the big day!
Looks delicious! Expect I’ll buy a cake for Christmas day but am impressed with all the festive baking efforts I’m seeing at the moment, especially this one (I love peppermint!)
Wow that looks fab!!! Sounds delicious too x #RecipeOfTheWeek
What a beautiful festive cake! And what a clever idea with the hidden surprises of coloured cake pops.
This looks fabulous and perfect for those that don’t like traditional Christmas Cake! (although I love it and not a big fan of white chocolate but would definitely like to have a go at making for a gift) xx
Your cake design is great, love the idea of using peppermint too. #recipeoftheweek
Well I’m a Christmas cake traditionalist but this looks really beautiful and I’m sure wouldn’t hang around the house as long as the usual cake does!
Forgot to tag #recipeoftheweek
I think this is so pretty and I love the overlapping design. Thanks for linking up to #recipeoftheweek. Have Pinned and tweeted this post and there’s a fresh linky live now 🙂
I loved this cake when I saw it before Christmas – I even bought peppermint to use in the top tier of my Christmas cake (I didn’t actually manage to use it but I had good intentions). Thanks for linking to #CelebrationCakesAndBakes
Love the idea of the cake pops inside and love the green stars on top of the red.
January’s Celebration Cakes and Bakes Roundup | Mummy makes cakes
[…] the lovely Jenny Paulin from Mummy Mishaps linked a fabulous Peppermint and White Chocolate cake decorated with brightly coloured stars of Renshaw baking’s ready to roll […]
This looks so fab, I love the surprise inside and I don’t think you can beat a star on a Christmas cake can you?! I’m doing a weekly festive food linky called #festivefoodfriday over on my blog if you fancy joining us – this would be perfect!