No elaborate piping or writing on the cake. Fill and frost, then sprinkle the top with a choice of:
- chopped nuts
- coconut
- cake decorating candy sprinkles
- crushed peppermint candy
- chocolate chips
- sugar pearls
- nut halves, candies or marshmallow shapes arranged in a pattern
- sides or top of cake frosted and decorated with animal crackers or small cookies made with shaped cookie cutters: flowers, butterflies stars, frosted numbers or letters, gingerbread boys, hopping bunnies
- shoe-string licorice or icing squeezed from a tube to draw stems; use a rolling pin to flatten marshmallows (sprinkled with tinted sugar) or gumdrops and then cut flattened candy into petal shapes to make flowers
- black shoe-string licorice and round pastel mints or flat candies to make "balloons"
- marshmallow snowmen: put two marshmallows together with a pretzel stick, use pretzels for arms, pieces of fruit roll-up for a scarf, cut-up black jujubes for the hat, candy dots for eyes and buttons. (Candy dots can be made from piped dots of royal icing or use bits of candy stuck on with icing.)
Not-So-Quick White Leaves
Use fresh bay leaves (my Mom has a bay tree growing in a pot inside her front door). Make sure not to use leaves from a poisonous plant!
If you don't have many leaves, work in batches. See pictures of how to coat bay leaves with white chocolate in the December 2024 issue of Southern Living Magazine.
Chocolate leaves can be placed in patterns, like the petals on a flower, or to form poinsettias on a Christmas cake, or added to piped icing flowers.
- 20 fresh bay leaves, washed and thoroughly patted dry
- 2 cups white vanilla melting wafers (from 1 10-oz pkg)
- cooking spray
- Coat bottom side of each bay leaf with cooking spray, wipe away excess.
- Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Place melting wafers in a medium heatproof bowl and microwave in HIGH in 30-second intervals, stirring well between intervals, until mixture is smooth. Takes approximately 90 seconds to 2 minutes, total.
- Dip the greased side of each leaf into the melted wafers, using fingers to spread coating in an even layer and wiping excess from edges as needed. Place leaves, coated sides up, on a parchment-lined baking sheet.
- Let coated leaves stand at room temperature 15 minutes.
- Carefully peel leaves away from the coating; set aside candy leaves.
- Wipe off bay leaves and repeat process to make as many candy leaves as you need, reheating the candy mixture in 30 second bursts and stirring if it starts to dry out.
- Store candy leaves at room temperature in an airtight container up to 3 days.
- Once set, candy leaves may be trimmed.
