Christmas Drip Cake
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This vegan Christmas drip cake is a 2-layer 8” or 9” round biscoff cake. It has an almond buttercream frosting and a thick biscoff drizzle. I decorated it to look like a reindeer. The recipe includes instructions for the reindeer decoration. But you can also skip the reindeer part and just have a traditional Christmas biscoff cake.
This recipe makes a 2-layer 8” or 9” inch round cake (12-16 servings).
Table of Contents
(click the links below to skip to the section you’re looking for)
- Biscoff Cake
- Almond Frosting
- Biscoff Drip
- Assembly and Decoration
- Tips and FAQ
- Ingredient Substitutions
- Video
- Contact Me with Questions
- Similar Recipes
♫ Listening to ♫
Christmas Day in the Sun by Hot Hot Heat
This adorable reindeer Christmas drip cake isn’t only appropriate for the December holidays. I actually made this for my friend Briana’s birthday. I’ve never met anyone who is more into Christmas than Briana. So trust me when I say that this was the perfect birthday cake for her.
A reindeer might be too childlike for you, your family, or Santa Claus (he’s a serious guy). This recipe has alternative decoration suggestions for a more elegant Christmas drip cake.
How to Make 2 Round Biscoff Cakes for this Christmas Cake
prep time: 15 min | bake time: 25 min
Follow my biscoff cake recipe for the cake portion of this recipe. Double the ingredients, but follow the rest of the recipe as instructed.
Divide the batter between two 8-inch or 9-inch round cake pans after coating them in oil and lining them with parchment paper. If you’re not sure what I mean by this, read the recipe for my nutella cake.
Bake at 350°F (175ºC) for 25 minutes.
Insert a toothpick into the center of both cakes. If it comes out clean, the cakes are ready to take out of the oven. If it doesn’t, set the timer for 5 minutes and repeat the toothpick test. Baking time depends on so many factors: what your cake pans are made of, how hot your oven runs, and how long the oven was preheating before you put your cake in.
Cool on cooling racks until the entire cake pans are cool to the touch (even the centers).
Vegan Almond Buttercream Frosting
prep time: 15min
Follow my almond buttercream frosting for the frosting portion of this recipe.
If you prefer vanilla frosting, replace the almond extract with pure vanilla extract.
Biscoff Drip
prep time: 3 min
Follow my biscoff sauce recipe for the drip portion of this Christmas drip cake recipe. The consistency is important. If you like thick drips that don’t go all the way down the cake like I do, you want to use less liquid. If you prefer thinner drips that go all the way down the cake, you can use more liquid to thin the sauce more.
Passing on the reindeer cake? Want a more elegant Christmas drip cake? Double the biscoff sauce recipe recipe so it covers the entire top of the cake.
How to Assemble and Decorate a Reindeer Cake
decorating time: 40 min (not including making the ears and antlers) | wait time: 3 hours
Dollhouse Shortcut
You can make or purchase inedible ears and antlers for your reindeer cake to save time on decorating.
Level the cakes by trimming off some of the tops of each cake if they aren’t already flat on top.
Fill the 2 layers of cake with frosting.
Cover the outside of the 2-layer stacked cake with a crumb coat of frosting. Assembling the cake and covering it in a crumb coat of frosting took me 7 minutes.
Chill the cake while you prepare the frosting for decorating the cake to look like a reindeer.
Color a little bit of the frosting. I made black and pink. Check out my list of vegan food coloring for brands that you can trust.
Draw your reindeer face onto a piece of acetate if you are worried about freehanding it. I am not a good artist so I drew my basic reindeer face shape on mine. If you don’t have acetate, you can use parchment paper for your buttercream transfer.
Pipe the facial features on the acetate first. I used a decopen because it gives me more control than a piping bag.
Fill in the rest of the deer’s face with white frosting. Try not to leave any gaps of air. Preparing the buttercream transfer took me 10 minutes.
Add the final coat of frosting, smoothing it out with an offset spatula or a scraper. If you have a cake turntable, it will make this process quicker and easier.
Press the acetate or parchment paper ever so lightly onto the cake. Some people chill their design in the fridge for 10-15 minutes before doing this step. I didn’t. Maybe my lines would have been crisper if I had. Do not remove the parchment or acetate yet. It took me 11 minutes to add the final coat of frosting and the buttercream transfer.
Freeze the cake with the parchment or acetate still stuck to it. It will peel off easily once the frosting is completely frozen.
Make your antlers and ears while you wait. I used my black cocoa cookie dough to make mine and then attached them to the cake with toothpicks. I then drove this cake to a birthday party for 2 hours. That’s when things took a turn for the worse. The antlers ended up breaking. So sad. If you plan to travel with this cake, I recommend making your antlers and ears out of something else. I would say melted chocolate, but then you have to worry about heat. Maybe colored rice paper?
I had some leftover pink frosting from my reindeer’s nose. So, I decorated the inside of the deer’s ears with some pink frosting.
Remove the cake from the freezer after 3-4 hours of freezing.
Slowly and carefully peel the parchment or acetate off of the cake leaving your deer’s face.
Pour or spoon the biscoff drizzle onto the part of the cake that is above the face.
Spread it out with a mini offset spatula (or any tool you have), coaxing the drips to spill over the sides. This step took me 7 minutes.
Add the ears and antlers.
If the kawaii reindeer cake isn’t your style, ARE YOU HEARTLESS? Just kidding. You can add the biscoff drip to the entire cake and top with festive sprinkles.
Frequently Asked Questions
How can I personalize this Christmas drip cake with a message?
Personalizing this cake is a great alternative to the reindeer design. Chill the cake after you add the biscoff drip, and while the cake chills, prepare a Lékué deco pen with some frosting. Once the biscoff drip has firmed up, write your holiday greeting on top of the cake with the decopen.
What do I do with leftover biscoff drizzle?
I always save all my leftover frostings and fillings. I used my leftover biscoff drizzle on a chocolate cake I made the following month. The biscoff sauce stayed good for a whole month in my fridge! You can also use it on cupcakes, brownies, or cookies.
Can this Christmas cake be made with eggnog cake instead of biscoff cake?
Want to make an eggnog Christmas cake with a biscoff drip? Follow the eggnog cupcake recipe instructions with some slight modifications. Triple the cupcake ingredients for an eggnog cake. Double the frosting ingredients for eggnog frosting. When you get to the part where you add batter to cupcake liners, divide into 2 round cake pans instead.
Ingredient Substitutions
All the ingredient substitutions are on the individual recipe pages below.
- Ingredient substitutions for the biscoff cake
- Ingredient substitutions for the almond buttercream
- Ingredient substitutions for the biscoff drizzle
The only ingredients I added for this cake were the food coloring for the facial features. I used black cocoa powder for the black frosting and Wilton pink food coloring for the pink frosting. For alternatives, please see my comprehensive list of vegan food coloring.
Video
Here’s a video of me making this reindeer cake.
Comments or Questions?
If you make this recipe, I would love it if you’d snap a pic, post to instagram, and tag me @vegandollhouse. It seriously makes my day/week/month!
Please message me (instagram or email) if you have any questions or feedback about the recipe.
Other Christmas Drip Cake Ideas
Here are other drip cake recipes that could magically become Christmas drip cakes.
- Chocolate and mint are a popular Christmas flavor combination. This chocolate mint cake has a ganache drip, and a naturally-colored green frosting.
- German chocolate cake is traditional at Christmas. This german chocolate cake has a chocolate ganache drip. Since it’s already brown, it would be easy to convert into a reindeer cake.
- I know chocolate and coconut cake isn’t a traditional Christmas cake flavor. But, I think with the right decorations, this could become a super cute Christmas drip cake. Think vegan white chocolate snowflakes and snowy morning sprinkles.
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