Christmas Cake Ideas

Further than most people think. Bake the layers up to a month ahead, cool them completely, wrap each one twice and freeze. Thaw them wrapped on the counter for an hour or two, or overnight in the fridge, and they frost like fresh. A cake filled and frosted with buttercream can be finished the day before, kept covered in the fridge, and brought out an hour before serving so the frosting softens. Cream cheese frosting goes on the day before at the earliest, and whipped cream only on the day. Bundt and sheet cakes keep two or three days covered at room temperature, and most taste better on the second day.

Pick one idea and commit to it. Sugared cranberries and a sprig of rosemary on white frosting is the fastest and reads as Christmas from across the room. A snowfall of White Sparkling Sugar over the top of a bundt or a loaf does the same with no frosting at all, and the crystals keep their sparkle. Crushed candy canes pressed around the base of a chocolate cake, green buttercream trees piped with an open star tip, or chocolate bark shards standing up in the frosting all work on their own. Two of these on one cake start to look like a craft project.

Heat equal parts sugar and water just until the sugar dissolves, then let the syrup cool for five minutes. Syrup that is still hot splits the skins. Stir in fresh cranberries, lift them out with a slotted spoon and spread them on a rack for an hour until the coating turns tacky. Roll them in granulated sugar, or in White Sparkling Sugar for a coarser sparkle, and let them dry another hour. Keep them uncovered at room temperature. The fridge is humid, and humidity turns the sugar coat back into syrup. Make them the day you decorate or the day before.

Dutch-Process Cocoa has been treated to neutralize its acidity, which gives it a darker color and a smooth, rounded chocolate flavor without the sharp edge of natural cocoa. Ours carries 22-24% cocoa butter, and that fat is what keeps a cocoa cake moist. Natural cocoa is acidic and reacts with baking soda to lift the batter, so a recipe written for natural cocoa and soda alone will rise less if you swap in Dutch. Recipes that use baking powder, or both leaveners, take Dutch-Process without any change. When in doubt, use the cocoa the recipe names, and if it names Dutch, do not swap in natural.

American buttercream, for anything that has to sit for hours. It sets a light crust and holds a piped tree or a tall swirl at room temperature. Swiss meringue buttercream is silkier and smoother to eat, and it holds in a cool room, but it softens once the room warms past the mid-seventies. Cream cheese frosting belongs on gingerbread and red velvet for the flavor, but it is the softest of the three, so keep the cake cold and bring it out an hour before serving. Whipped cream is a same-day frosting that lives in the fridge. A tablespoon of Meringue Powder beaten into American buttercream gives it a firmer set.

An 8-inch two-layer cake cuts into 12 to 16 party slices and a 9-inch into 16 to 20. A 9x13 sheet cake gives 20 to 24 squares, a 10-cup bundt 12 to 16 slices, and a yule log rolled from a 15x10 pan about 10 to 12. For thirty or more, two sheet cakes beat one tall cake: they bake in one go, frost in minutes and travel flat. If the cake is one of several desserts on the table, count the slices thin and the numbers at the top of each range hold.