Santa Claus Cake Decorating and Baking Tutorial

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Santa Claus
with Paul Bradford
Skill level: Intermediate
HD Lessons: 18
Decorating time: 1 Day
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08:06

1. The Stand

Before we do anything remotely cake related we need to create a custom cake stand for this cake, this allows the cake to stay solid and stable.

The stand is to be created out of wood and you might need to nip to the DIY shop for this stage and of course take care when using power tools!

Tip: Choose a shorter structure for a cartoony Santa Claus and a taller structure for a more realistic Santa cake.

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06:11

2. The Belly

The bottom of Santa’s big belly won’t be made from cake, instead we’re using a build up of tin foil for this section which will attach directly to the underside of the stand that we created in lesson 1.

Tip: Make sure that you use plenty of glue… you don’t want any parts to fall off!

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09:00

3. Carving the Cake

Carving the cake should be done directly on the stand from top to bottom as shown, use a small amount of ganache to hold the cake in place. Dowels are used for the stacked cakes just to be certain the cake will have the strength needed to hold the weight of the sugarpaste and extra features. Each cake should be split and filled with a layer of chocolate ganache.

Finish this lesson off by covering the cake and lower foil sections with chocolate ganache, then pop the cake into a fridge or cool area to firm up.

Tip: Make sure to refrigerate your cake before carving.

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21:17

4. Sugarpaste

Smooth off the ganache after leaving it to firm by using a pastry brush and hot water, you now should have a rather egg shaped Santa.

Use some scraps of sugarpaste if you have some to cover the wooden leg section of the structure, once these are covered you can add the red sugarpaste to the legs and bottom half of Santa.

Tip: Use the stitching tool and others to add extra detail to the trousers.

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15:06

5. Icing the Body

Layers of sugarpaste are added to produce Santa’s snug red coat and top half of his body.

The neck is added using modelling chocolate and a dowel is used to hold the neck in place.

Tip: Have a look around for different jacket designs and choose one that you prefer.

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16:35

6. The Belt

As the belt will be passing underneath the arms we’ll create it now using black sugarpaste and a ribbon cutter set to around an inch (2.54cm) in width.

Using the same black sugarpaste we can also create Santa’s boots at this stage following Paul’s guidance.

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16:03

7. The Arms

Paul discusses ideas for Santa’s arms and opts to create a hands on hips design  with the arms made out of modelling chocolate wrapped in the red sugarpaste used on the jacket. The arms are fixed on using cocktail sticks, these should come out easily when the arm is removed. You can also use spaghetti or similar.

Tip: You can use flowerpaste for the arms but you need to wait 10/15 minutes before placing it.

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06:42

8. The Dusting

Using a slightly darker edible dust, highlight any shadows or detail indentations you’ve made on the cake. You can use an airbrush for this too if you’d prefer.

Clear PME edible spray glaze is added to the Santa cake to intensify the shading.

Tip: Remember to be light handed in this stage.

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19:50

9. The Buckle and White Detail

After three coats of PME Spray glaze (left to dry) you can now create the buckle for Santa’s belt and also add the white fluffy details to Santa’s coat and trousers.
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06:45

10. The Head - Part 1

A polystyrene egg makes the perfect base section for Santa’s head. Simply add a dowel hole as shown and cover with a flesh tone sugarpaste of your choice. Working the sugarpaste on the egg is likely to get a bit hot so leave it to cool in the fridge after this lesson.

Tip: You could use rice crispy cakes or modelling chocolate instead of polystyrene.

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15:14

11. The Head - Part 2

After refrigerating the head, mark out the position of Santa’s eyes using a ball tool. Another covering of sugarpaste over the facial features will help bulk up the size of the head and also and also look great with the facial features showing through.

Fill in the eye sockets with white sugarpaste and add a small piece of coloured sugarpaste on top of this for the eye colour.

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10:54

12. The Head - Part 3

Paul continues the creation of Santa’s head by adding eyelashes and that all important beard. A touch of shading is also added to give a nice warm red glow to Santa’s face…not too much or you’ll be able to tell he’s been on the Sherry!
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15:45

13. Whiskers and Hat

More facial hair is created for Santa’s head, the moustache  is next on the agenda and is achieved with a tapered sausage shape followed by some texturing. Using the red sugarpaste once again, this time we can create Santa’s hat – A simple cone shape held one with wooden picks or spaghetti and finished off with more of the white fluffy styled sugarpaste trim.
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10:17

14. Finishing Touches

Almost there and time for some finishing touches! Add some buttons to Santa’s jacket using a circular cutter to cut out some black sugarpaste – these can be finished off with a ball tool and pointed tool for authentic button detail.
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04:38

15. The Board

It’s time to cover the cake board and we’ve chosen to use strips of white sugarpaste which will give a snow effect.
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05:19

16. Finishing the Board

Add snowflakes to the board and also decorate with black and red ribbon which will tie in nicely with Santa’s colours.
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02:06

17. Other Ideas

Paul shares some other ideas for this tutorial, you can also check out more Christmas cake tutorials here, we’re sure there will be plenty you’ll love!
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01:41

18. Pro Lesson

The Pro lesson covers the business side of things as Paul talks about how much to charge, realistic creation times and more – all available as part of our Pro membership.

It’s all about Christmas with our latest Santa Cake tutorial. You will be learning to make a full featured 3D Santa cake broken down step by step into easy to follow lessons taught by our very own Paul Bradford. The Santa Claus cake course teaches you how to make a solid wooden cake stand, sugarpaste modelling techniques, and icing the tricky Santa cake shape as well as many other useful cake decorating techniques.

Paul Bradford

Paul Bradford

Paul Bradford´s mission is to ‘Empower people to achieve their cake decorating dreams’ by providing a range of cake decorating courses and online tutorials through their website, which currently teaches 195,000+ students.  
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