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A Santa Claus cake is an adorable holiday dessert that will make every kid smile from ear to ear. Using basic cake decorating skills and delicious buttercream recipes, you can turn this simple cake into the centerpiece of your holiday meal or party dessert table. Follow these instructions to make your own mini buttercream Santa cake! I hope you enjoy making him as much as I did!
Recommended Tools and Equiptment
I cut out three round mini cake layers from my Golden Chocolate Cake recipe to make this Santa. I frosted him on the outside with my House Vanilla Buttercream.
You can switch up the piping tips and still get similar results, but these are the tools that I used to make this buttercream Santa cake:
- one 2.6″ cookie cutter to cut out 3 layers of cake (or any round cookie cutter around 2.5-3″)
- 4″ mini gold cake board
- a small offset spatula for frosting the cake and smoothing out Santa’s hat
- 12″ disposable piping bags
- Couplers and Coupler Rings
- #10 Round Tip for Santa’s black eyes
- #12 Round Tip for his white beard
- #822 Star Tip for Santa’s buttercream mustache and rosettes around his hat
- #352 Leaf Tip for the holly on his hat
- #4 Round Tip for the “sparkle” dot in Santa’s eyes and for the holly berries on his hat
- #809 Round tip for piping on the red portion of Santa’s hat
Watch me make this Buttercream Santa Cake:
You can also watch me make him on Instagram or Tiktok (and follow me so you never miss a recipe or cake design! 🙂 )
Thanks for Reading. ❤️
Mini Buttercream Santa Cake
Ingredients
- 3 small round cake layers Cut out of your favorite moist cake recipe baked in a 1/4 sheet pan. You can get up to 4 mini 3-layer cakes when using a 2.5 or 2.6" round cutter. I used the Golden Cake in my Moist Golden Chocolate Cake
- ¼ cup buttercream for filling the cake I used my Chocolate Buttercream
- 2-3 cups Buttercream for decorating I used my House Vanilla Buttercream
Instructions
Crumb Coat your Mini Cake
- Cut out 3 small round cake layers (I used a 2.6" round cutter), and layer 1 mini 3-layer cake with your preferred buttercream. I used a 4" mini cake board as the base of the cake. Crumb Coat the cake in white vanilla buttercream, then allow it to set up in the freezer for 10 minutes.
Prepare Your Buttercream Colors
- Divide the remaining vanilla buttercream and dye with a few drops of gel food color as follows (I describe what drops of color I use below. You can find all of these colors in this gel food color set, but any gel food color should work. It only takes a few drops to achieve a bright color, although black and red will require more dye).–Reserve 1 cup(s) white for Santa's beard and hat—3/4 cup(s) buttercream dyed bright red (I used Super Red)—1/4 cup buttercream dyed your preferred skin color (I used Flesh Tone and a little bit of the prepared red buttercream to create a peach color)—2 Tablespoons buttercream dyed bright green (I used Leaf Green and Lemon Yellow)–1 Tablespoon(s) buttercream dyed black (I used Coal Black)
- Fill four 12" disposable piping bags with Couplers and Coupler Rings in every color but the skin color (white, black, red, green). You'll also need 2 piping bags without couplers–one white buttercream bag with a #822 Star Tip, and one red buttercream bag with an #809 Round tip.
Decorate Your Mini Santa
- Spread a layer of your prepared skin-colored buttercream on part of the cake for Santa's face.
- Use the black buttercream with a #10 Round Tip for Santa's black eyes. Use the white buttercream with a #12 Round Tip to make many white dots for Santa's beard. Add a white mustache with the #822 Star Tip.
- Use a #809 Round tip for piping on the red portion of Santa's hat, then smooth it out with a small offset spatula. Pipe white rosettes around the hat rim and for the hat's pom-pom with the #822 Star Tip. Use the green buttercream and #352 Leaf Tip for the holly leaves on his hat, then pipe red holly berries with the #4 Round Tip. Add a white "sparkle" dot on Santa's eyes using white buttercream and a #4 round tip.
- Refrigerate, then allow the cake(s) to come back to room temperature before serving. Watch me make this Santa Cake in my Video to see each step in action!
