How are you decorating your Christmas cake?

[ChristmasCountdown]

I'm making a Christmas cake for the first time this year and looking for decoration ideas (that are fairly simple). Any suggestions?

i'm a reasonable baker, but can't ice for toffee, so top mine with nuts and glaze

I haven't decided yet. I usually cover with rolled out fondant (either home made or bought) and then decorate that with something, Christmas trees cut out of green, or one year I made a stacked tree using rolled out bits of icing cutting with different size star cutters and stacking them.

Lindy Smith's Contemporary Cake Decorating Bible is a fantastic inspiration and has loads of useful techniques which are easy to adapt.

One year I cut out a Christmas tree from green icing then decorated it with those little sliver balls, that looked nice. This year I'm putting a gold star shaped tree decoration on one that im giving as a gift then wrapping gold sparkly chain round the sides. That actually sounds a bit naff but it's really pretty (she says, hopefully...)
The cake I make for us is the same every year and I wouldn't change it ever....it's got a hunting scene on it, the figures are actually made of lead and are nearly a hundred years old. They belonged to my great-granny and have been on every family cake since she was first given them. I loved them when i was a child and they got passed down to me. When I put them on the cake though, I always put the fox running away whilst the hounds are looking in the opposite direction.....I was the first family member to refuse to go hunting but that is another thread altogether...

I make a very easy chocolate tiffin and cut into squares that I pile up into a mountain and decorate with fake trees and reindeer and dust with icing sugar.

I think it was nigella?

Royal icing, spread over then make "waves" by putting flat of knife on icing and lifting off quickly.

Then stick in some tacky decorations (think I may let DC do this this year)

Biscuit cutters are your friends. Nice large simple snow men, snow flakes, stars or reindeer. Add a small holly cutter to add a touch of festive green and red and some nice ribbon and your sorted.

White ice cake, allow to dry over night.
Mix a bit of blue food colouring with some gin. Use a clean paint brush to paint a blue wash in top 2/3 of cake let it dry.
Cut snowman out of white icing. Place over wintertime blue sky.

Accessorise with ready coloured icing. Packets of red, green, yellow and black in your supermarket.
Put a few stars in the sky

Wrap in pretty starry or snowy ribbon.

I happen to have snowman ribbon in icy pale blue, but anything silvery and icy looks good. As does white frosty sparkle dust, if you have a specialist shop.

Poppadum - I have been known to do 'the snow scene'!

Pigeon - to me there is no other way - my mum always decorated the cake in this way and I just LOVE recreating it every year. It gives me a lovely warm Christmassy glow!

I'm hoping to give this tree of stars a go this year. I bought small star cutters from eBay that should do the job.

I'd like a go at that, I have a set of star cutters.
However, my DDs tend to want to take over cake decorating.
Hence we got a rainbow reindeer last year

One recommendation with the tree of stars - make sure the icing is quite thick (well, not too thin anyway) otherwise you end up with rather a squat tree!

I like white stars and white edible glitter as the children can help and it still looks reasonably tasteful.

After the marzipan and icing is on, I'm going to cut out different sized snowflakes (White icing) then place them around nicely. Then I've got some edible silver glitter I'll use.

Thanks for all these ideas! I've got loads of festive biscuit cutters already, so I can put those to use.

Just one other thing- let the tree components dry before constructing or it will sag and the points might break off.

I've got three different sizes of ivy leaf cutters. I'm going to cut out lots in the three sizes, dry them over crinkled tinfoil (so they dry with some contours to look real), then will assemble them on the cake in a sort of G shape around the top and falling down one side. To finish I'll dust some silver or gold lustre dust on the tips of the leaves.

I thought I'd revive this thread to see if any more good ideas were shared before I actually have to decide how I'm decorating the cake!

I usually decorate with marzipan, royal icing and then an assortment of tree figures and some skaters. However this year I am not going to ice it, but will probably do a lace doily effect with icing sugar, after 7 years of marriage DH has told me he likes cakes plain - fair enough!

White icing with stars sprayed with edible silver spray.

The tree of stars is lovely, I might steal that one myself.

i am going to ice my cake in red, with white snowflakes and lustre with a white ribbon around the bottom.

My cake making skills are fairly good, decorating not so much.
I am going to do the same as the last two years I think here

Though I do vary the shapes and use silver balls normally.

woollyback I was already planning to do the tree of stars cake !

I'm going for the snow scene with tacky plastic - this year sparkly plastic - figures. Because not only is it traditional, it is also easy to do (and is also the only thing I can do). I don't like fondant icing at all and anything else made with royal icing is too hard.

I think I'm going to go for some kind of snow scene, but might order some figures to go on the top.

How far in advance would anyone recommend decorating the cake?