Easy Fondant Christmas Cake Figures

These easy-to-make fondant Christmas cake figures make great toppers for cakes, large and small.  They can easily be customised to your own ideas and are great fun to create.

I have gathered together some of my favourite Christmas cake toppers and decorations together in this post. So that you can easily scroll through and get inspiration for your next Christmas cake.

Each decoration is easy to make and requires the minimum amount of special tools or equipment. They are ideal to use as a single topper on Mini Christmas cakes but most will also work well in larger quantities or combined for larger cakes.

I would love to be able to shout out that all these fondant Christmas cake decorations are entirely my own idea, but alas, not. They have come about from a variety of sources over time. The internet, books, magazines, friends and my own experiments.

Where I can remember I have shared link/credit but given they have come about over many years, I can't remember where the original inspiration came for all of them. In all cases, I have made changes to the original.

 

The Ingredients and Equipment 

Unless you are a prolific cake decorator, then it is likely that you you only have a few tools and equipment for such activities.  Happily though, there is very little which is needed to create these fun and interesting characters.

There is no doubt a host of other equipment and food stuffs which you could use when modelling fondant icing, though these are all the items which you need to make these simple fondant Christmas decorations

White fondant

You can buy fondant icing from most large supermarkets and food stores as well as from specialist cake decorating suppliers and online

Coloured fondant

You can either colour your own white fondant to the required colour or you can also get for packs of coloured fondant. This negates the need to buy different food colouring gels and saves on time.

As you only need small amounts of the coloured fondant look out for multi packs, such as Dr Oetker coloured fondant icing which I purchased from our local supermarket comes in a pack of 5 colours: red, black, yellow, blue and green. 

This pack of coloured fondants weighed a total of 500g which together with some white fondant was more than enough to fashion at least one of each of figures with some to spare. Though, of course, if you choose to make numerous Father Christmas's or penguins, then it may be wise to buy a larger pack of red or black.

Red and black fondant is especially hard to colour yourself as by the time you add enough colouring to achieve the depth of colour required, the texture of the fondant will have changed, so I would always recommend you buy these colours ready-made.

The fondants can be combined together to create additional colours, for instance, yellow with a little red to create an orange for the snowman's nose, white with a little red to create a pink for the face and hands of Santa and the choir boy.

You will also need

• Icing sugar
• Sharp knife - non-serrated.
• Cocktail Sticks or a thin skewer  - You'll be surprised how useful cocktail sticks are when creating characters from fondant icing. They're great for creating mouths, holes for small eyes, texturising hair and even picking up tiny pieces of fondant which may be being used for eyes.
• Fondant Modelling Tools (Optional)-  I purchased a set of plastic modelling tools cheaply, just a pound or two, from our local supermarket, though of course you could spend a great deal more if you want.  They are also readily available cheaply online, I used just one or two of the tools.  They helped to prevent finger prints from spoiling the character when repositioning something or ensuring a shape had adhered properly.
• Rolling pin - Either use a specific fondant rolling pin which is super smooth to prevent marks being left on the fondant or a regular baking rolling pin.
• Small paint brush -  Keep one to use specifically for food preparation only.
• Clear alcohol - For 'gluing' parts. Boiled water can also be used if you prefer.
• Edible glitter or dusting powders -  These are optional. I like to use them as a little extra shimmer or sparkle always adds to festive look.

The Snowman

Meet Frosty the Snowman! He is easy to make following my easy step by step instructions.

Frosty was created after following the tutorial by Zoe's Fancy Cakes.   The tutorial was easy to follow and helped those new to creating fondant characters, feel confident in making an effective Christmas character.  

Both Zoe's Fancy Cakes and myself dressed our respective snowmen in a matching green hat and scarf combo, though clearly you can use which ever colour you prefer or have available.  If you're feeling a little more adventurous the scarf could be customised with a pattern, think stripey, polka dot or even tartan!

My fondant snowman was fashioned with a scarf wrapped around the neck which provided a little more detail than the two pieces Zoe used.  Frosty was then finished with a few fondant snowballs at his 'feet' and a sprinkling of edible glitter in a colour aptly called 'snowflake'.

 

The Penguin

I have to say this is my favourite fondant figure to make, not least because they are the easiest. I just couldn't resist making baby penguins too.

My easy to follow step by step instructions to make this penguin are here. Have him just standing there and he is quite cute. Give him a few snowballs and he is even more fun.

I found that I needed to re-ball the initial black 'skittle' shape a
few times until I was happy with the general shape and the position of
the penguin's wings.  After that, the fondant penguin was easy to create and looks fun with a snowball under his flipper whilst stood next to some more.  Mischief in action!

Father Christmas

It wouldn't be Christmas without a Santa with his red coat and long beard, Father Christmas is recognisable the world over. 

The basic shape was made in a similar way to the snowman, though rather than a round ball for the body I made it more oval and narrower at the top. Again it was straightforward to replicate using my Santa step by step instructions.

The Choir Boy

Again, made in a similar way to the snowman and Santa, the body is oval in shape. The ruff of the choir boy outfit is easy to make by rolling out the edges of a circle of fondant with a skewer or cocktail stick. You can get an even frillier effect if you have a tiny fluted round biscuit cutter.

The trickiest part is getting the hymn sheet to stay in place.

You can paint the boy's hair on the figure with food colour or colour a little fondant with colouring or by blending together some red, a little black and white fondant to create a brown. This is then shaped and fixed onto the head and textured with a cocktail stick as for the Santa.

Full instructions for the choir boys are here

How are you planning to decorate your Christmas cakes this year?

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