Easy Christmas Cake {Tree}

Easy Christmas cake recipe (tree), homemade with simple ingredients. Starts off with a sheet cake. This festive holiday cake is flat and decorated with green buttercream icing roses, sprinkles and candies. No fancy cake pans, molds or tools necessary at all.

I love making edible trees as you can tell from these Christmas Tree Brownies, and these Christmas Tree Cookies and even these Easy Christmas Tree Cupcakes. This Chocolate Tree Cake is also very popular with readers. Today's recipe and step by step tutorial will allow you to make one of the easiest holiday cakes ever! No one should be spending hours in the kitchen during the holidays. Find shortcuts and make life easier. Even though this cake design is simple, it has a major "WOW" factor. 

Key Ingredients

• Yellow sheet cake- You can make it homemade or purchase a box mix at the store.
• Buttercream icing- The classic frosting that is easy for cake decorating.
• Green food coloring- Use more or less to make two different shades.
• Chocolate frosting- You will need about a cup of this, so plan accordingly.
• Sprinkles- Make sure you have red, green, and white colors.
• Candies- Mini M&M candies are a great choice, but you can add a variety.

How to make easy Christmas tree cake recipe from scratch?

Assembling the top of cake

1. Bake- Cake and allow to cool fully.
2. Prepare- Green buttercream frosting and chocolate frosting.
3. Cut- Sheet cake into shapes (Image 1).
4. Place- One triangle cake on a cake board (Image 2).
5. Pipe- Little dark green stars on top of the cake (Image 3).
6. Position- The other triangle on top of the icing (Image 4).
7. Pipe- Large light green roses on top of the cake (Image 5).
8. Fill the gaps- By piping little stars with dark green icing (Image 6).

Assembling the bottom of cake and Decorating

1. Place- One rectangle cake below the prepared triangle layer cake (Image 7).
2. Pipe- Little stars with chocolate frosting until covered (Image 8).
3. Position- The other rectangle cake on top of the icing (Image 9).
4. Pipe and decorate- Pipe little stars again until fully covered and toss red sprinkles and candies on the top and white sprinkles on the bottom (Image 10).

Variations

Add a filling- Instead of adding buttercream in the middle, you may want to try something new like Vanilla Custard, Chocolate Ganache, Cherry Pie Filling or even homemade Whipped Cream.

Instead of chocolate frosting- Try Chocolate Whipped Cream.

Make a white tree- By using white frosting, sparkling sugar and white edible pearls. This will make it look like a flocked or snow covered tree. Just don't add any food coloring to your icing or you can choose one of my other white frostings such as Marshmallow Frosting or White Chocolate Buttercream Frosting.

Make a bigger cake- I used a 9x13 sheet pan but you can use a larger one and make a bigger cake to feed more people.

Rainbow version- Make this by using red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple icing colors.

Add a star- You can add a yellow star to the top of the cake by cutting out a fondant piece with a cookie cutter. Use my Marshmallow Fondant recipe or just use store-bought fondant.

Use other piping tips- To make different buttercream designs, consider using a small star tip, grass tip, petal tip, or even a round tip.

Mini cakes- Follow the same concept to make individual sized mini cakes.

Pull apart cupcake cake- Arrange the cupcakes in a triangle form and decorate with icing or fondant. Try my Red Velvet Cupcakes or these Gingerbread Cupcakes.

Frost the sides- Of the tree and trunk if you want a different style as a fully covered cake.

Tips and techniques

If you have never made buttercream roses and rosettes- Be sure out to check out how I pipe them here in these Red Rose Cupcakes and this Rosette Cake.

The consistency of icing should be medium-firm- If icing is too soft and runny from the heat in your kitchen or your hands, making it hard to pipe, chill in the refrigerator for 10-15 minutes to help stiffen up. If it's still too runny, you may have to mix in more powdered sugar to help thicken it.

Use clean tweezers- That you use in your kitchen only, to carefully place the sprinkles and candies exactly where you want on top of the cake.

I highly recommend using two shades- Of green icing or else you will end up with a very monotoned appearance overall.

Cool cake fully- Before you start decorating or else you will end up melting the frosting and causing a gooey mess.

Gently press- The bottom and top layers of cake together. You don't want to push so hard that the icing in the middle loses its shape or squeezes out the sides.

Evenly distribute- Candies and sprinkles to make it appear like a nicely decorated tree.

Fill all gaps- With frosting and decorations so that no cake shows through on the top. You can leave the sides as is since it shows the layers and adds a cool modern style.

Storage

• Make ahead- Cake and frosting can be made ahead and kept in the fridge for 2-3 days in sealed containers. When ready, decorate per instructions below.
• Room temperature- Don't leave out more than 2-3 hours.
• Refrigerate- Leftovers can be stored in a sealed container in the fridge for up to 3 days. 
• Freeze- Unfrosted cake and frosting can be stored separately in sealed containers in the freezer for up to 1 month. Thaw in the fridge, then decorate per instructions below.

Recipe FAQs

More Christmas desserts

• Easy Grinch Cake (With Buttercream Icing)
• Sugared Cranberries (Candied Cranberries)
• Easy Cake Mix Gingerbread Cookies
• Easy Poinsettia Cupcakes
• Easy Reindeer Cupcakes (Rudolph)
• Santa Hat Brownies

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