Make your own gluten free Christmas cake decorations

Honeybuns advent calendar

Now that the advent calendars have been prised open, we have entered “Peak Festive Preparation Season” here at Naish Farm.

Other clues that indicate we are in official count down mode include:

  • BoBo, our lovable Romanian rescue dog has now donned his new Christmas jumper.
  • A tub of Celebrations is centre stage in the office (and fast disappearing).
  • All hands are very much on deck – from baking cakes and assembling orders to keeping the kettle on a rolling boil.

Online last orders information

The Honeybuns ovens will be full tilt now until last orders on December 21st.

A note on Honeybuns Christmas orders

We can take the strain for you by writing a free gift card to accompany every order. We offer UK wide delivery with a one hour time slot – you can also choose to have parcels delivered to a DPD collection point.

Thank you from us all at Honeybuns

As an independent, small family business every single order is truly appreciated. Your custom enables us to continue doing what we adore – working as a small team to make the most delicious treats for you and your loved ones. Thank you.

We’ve learnt from previous years that in order to get ready for this period of …”ahem”, barely manageable mayhem- we have to do a practice Christmas run in the summer. And so it was this August that we held our annual Honeybuns Christmas photo shoot. Making snow men out of vegan marshmallows whilst the UK was ensconced in a prolonged heat wave was a little surreal…. Happily we ended up with some gorgeous photos of cakes and decorating ideas which we feature on this blog as well as on the Honeybuns online Christmas shop and our social media.

The big festive Photoshoot grants us permission to dress our celebration cake kits, tray bakes and slices up with all manner of edible glittery accessories. This year we were mindful of how we will all be watching our budgets quite carefully – so we used a lot of foraged decorations, which are free! We rummaged through hedgerows as well as our cupboards for inspiration.

All of the featured cake decorations are:

  • Gluten and wheat free
  • Dairy free and vegan
  • Nut free & titanium dioxide free
  • Quick, easy and fun to make
  • Budget friendly and eco friendly

Whether you are planning to have a traditionally iced Christmas cake or something a little more unusual we’re confident that our charming selection of DIY cake toppers will beat anything shop bought and plastic hands down.

First off we present you with our step by step guide to making free from chocolate leaves.

You will need:

  • a fine paint brush – like you find in a kids paint set
  • a selection of holly leaves, cleaned and dried
  • molten dark, vegan chocolate; 200 grams will cover lots of leaves
  • a tray to fit in your freezer
  • optional sea salt flakes

How to make your chocolate leaves

  1. Place your melted chocolate in a bowl.
  2. Paint your leaves on their smooth, top sides with molten chocolate.
  3. Place your leaves on the tray and pop in the freezer for 30 mins.
  4. Repeat the painting process once the first coat of chocolate has set.
  5. Build up to three coats.
  6. Carefully peel the holly leaves off –to reveal your beautiful dark chocolate versions.

Top Tips

  • When foraging for your holly leaves avoid any that are not above waist height. You want to avoid any chances of animal wee!
  • Remember some leaves are toxic including ivy – so leave these well alone.
  • Sprinkle some salt flakes over the final coat of chocolate before freezing.
  • Store your leaves either in a sealed, box in the fridge or in the freezer until you need them.
  • In between waiting for your chocolate coats to freeze why not crack on with this idea for glittery cherries and star anise……?
edible gold star anise decorations
natural plant based christmas cake decorations 1

How to make glistening cherries and dinky Christmas star decorations

You will need:

  • 1 x Honeybuns tray bake (16 portion traybakes in a variety of gluten free, vegan and dairy free options)
  • whole star anise – 8 or more
  • edible lustre. We love Renshaw’s Rainbow Dust. It’s gluten free, vegan and titanium dioxide free. Available in reds, golds and ambers including Flame Frenzy
  • glace marron cherries, or any glace cherries to be honest!
  • icing sugar and dredger
  • shallow mini bowls or saucers
  • cocktail stick
  • baking parchment

How to create your easy glittering star anise stars

  1. Decant some jam into a shallow bowl.
  2. Decant your Renshaws Rainbow Dust into a shallow bowl.
  3. Pop some baking parchment down on a tray.
  4. Each star anise has a flat bottom and a curved top side. Dip the curved top side of your star anise in the jam to coat. You are using the jam as a smooth glue so avoid any blobs.
  5. Dip the jam side of the star anise into the glitter dust and tap to remove any excess glitter.

To “glow up” your cherries

  1. Pop a cherry onto a cocktail stick and roll it directly in the glitter. Being glace, they should be sticky enough for you to skip the “jam step”.
  2. Place the finished cherries your parchment lined tray.

Top Christmas cake cake decorating ideas:

  • Mini sprigs of rosemary are perfect for making mini Christmas trees. For added oooh la la- give them a spritz of edible glitter dust or dust with sifted icing sugar.
  • For a snowy Nordic landscape add some retro re useable plastic reindeer- we found ours on E bay.

Inspiration for super pretty Christmas petit fours

If time is short our gluten free traybakes might just fit the bill. We’ve got plenty of vegan and dairy free choices online. Each large traybake will yield at least 32 petit four portions.

I cut the portions featured in the photographs into 16s then 32s and then into 64s. I’d recommend using fairly smooth topped cakes including these classics from the  Honeybuns range:

Essential gluten free ingredients to use for decorating your petit fours

  • Gluten free and vegan, ready made meringues, makes for excellent snow, just crumble them between your fingers, to create a dust.
  • Freeze dried fruit pieces including cranberry, strawberry, cherry and raspberry for a pop of vivid red.
  • Dessicated coconut
  • Tiny fresh mint leaves – have you got any growing outside or in a pot?
  • Edible glitter
  • Molten vegan dark chocolate
  • Glace orange slices which can be snipped with scissors into tiny slices.
  • Dark vegan chocolate flakes

Let’s get started on the fun creative bit with these super easy ideas

  1. Sprinkle mini cakes with meringue dust. Then lay one or two rosemary “needles” over the top.
  2. For a pretty green, pink and white seasonal colour way – sprinkle with meringue dust and add pieces of freeze dried raspberries and finish with one or two tiny fresh mint leaves.
  3. Slice a glace cherry in half and dip in glitter – then use to top off your petit four.
  4. Add some mini glace orange to your tiny pieces of dark chocolate brownie & crumble some dark choc flake over the top.

Where to buy?

For all your cake needs this Christmas head over to our online shop. We’ve got traybakes and celebration stack kits which make stunning centre piece desserts. From festive mincemeat crumble slice to vegan apple crumble we’ve got something for everyone.

We’ve also got fabulous cakes to gift – far more exciting than a bunch of flowers.

Sous Chef are brilliant for all the freeze dried fruits, meringues etc.

Make sure you don’t miss out on our product updates, gluten free baking tips, all the news from the bakery, and a monthly discount code for our yummy cakes. Sign up to our newsletter here.

You might also be interested in reading how to make your own gluten free Christmas hamper.

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