Mini Christmas Tree Cakes

This recipe makes 3 mini chocolate pastel kawaii christmas tree cakes.

Table of Contents

(click the links below to skip to the section you’re looking for)

• Chocolate Cake Recipe
• Pastel Frosting Recipe
• Ingredient Substitutions
• Video
• Contact Me with Questions
• Similar Recipes

I’m not exactly the grinch who stole christmas, but Christmas is probably my least favorite holiday for the following reasons: red and green DO NOT look good together, the consumerism this time of year is disgusting, and I’m not really what one might call a god-believer. (When Zen was little, she used to ask people all the time, are you a god-believer? That kid cracked me up on a regular basis.)

So, since I don’t have my own christmas tree to put in my house and decorate, I’ll be decorating these mini pastel chocolate cake trees with Kimmy and Ashley this year. And then I’ll shove them in my mouth so that I don’t have to spend my day off work on January 1 taking down all the decorations and putting everything back into the garage/attic/wherever you keep items that are only used once a year.

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Ingredients for the Vegan Chocolate Cake Recipe

(jump to the substitutions section to see ingredient details and suggestions for substitutions)

• 2 cups (480g) nondairy milk
• 1 tablespoon (15g) apple cider vinegar
• 2 ½ cups (325g) unbleached white flour
• ⅔ cup (55g) cocoa powder
• 1 ½ teaspoons (8g) baking soda
• 1 teaspoon (4g) baking powder
• ⅔ cup (144g) sunflower oil
• 1 ½ cups (325g) organic or raw sugar
• 2 teaspoons (8-9g) vanilla extract

How to Make Vegan Chocolate Christmas Tree Cakes

prep time: 30 min | bake time: 35 min

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175ºC).

Coat a 9"x13” lasagna pan with any vegetable oil (or vegan nonstick spray).

Combine vinegar and nondairy milk and let sit.

Sift together the flour, cocoa powder , baking soda, and baking powder into another bowl.

Add the oil, sugar, and vanilla to the nondairy milk mixture and stir well.

Add the dry ingredients slowly to the wet, mixing continuously. Stop mixing when you can no longer see any dry ingredients.

Pour the batter into the pan, scraping every last bit with a silicone spatula , and then using the spatula to smooth out the top as best as you can. The flatter you can get it, the easier the rest of the steps will be.

Bake for 35 minutes, until when you insert a toothpick into the center, it comes out clean. Set pan on cooling rack to cool in pan for 4 hours (or until you feel the bottom with your hand, and it’s just room temperature).

Make the frosting while you wait for the cake to cool.

Ingredients for the Vegan Buttercream Frosting Recipe

(jump to the substitutions section to see ingredient details and suggestions for substitutions)

• ¾ cup (170g) vegan butter or margarine
• ¾ cup (143g) organic palm shortening
• 1 tablespoon (12g) vanilla extract for vanilla frosting or 1 teaspoon (4g) mint extract and 2 teaspoons (8g) vanilla extract for vanilla mint frosting
• 4 ½ cups (540g) organic powdered sugar
• vegan food coloring (I used green, pink, and blue)

How to Make Vegan Pastel Christmas Tree Frosting

Leave the ingredients sitting out before using them. Best results come from using room temperature ingredients.

Whisk the spectrum sustainable organic palm shortening and margarine for 1 minute using a stand mixer or a handheld electric mixer.

Add the vanilla (and optional mint?) extract, and mix for another minute.

Sift in the powdered sugar, 1 cup at a time, mixing for at least minute between each addition.

Divide the frosting evenly into 3 bowls. I weighed all of my frosting and came out to 27 ounces, which perfectly divides by 3. If you don’t have a scale, you can just use measuring cups to divide it evenly.

Add 3 drops of wilton pink gel color to one bowl. Add 2-3 drops of wilton sky blue gel color to the second bowl. Add 1-2 drops of wilton sky blue gel color plus 3 drops of wilton leaf green gel color to the third bowl. If you prefer all-natural food coloring, check out my list of vegan food coloring.

Mix each bowl well and then decide if you need to add additional color to any of the bowls.

Fill 3 disposable piping bag s (with no tips) with each of the 3 colors of frosting.

Fit a Wilton star tip 1M into a larger piping bag . This will be your outer bag. Each inner bag can take turns inside this outer bag.

Decorating the Vegan Christmas Tree Cakes

Use the following sizes of biscuit cutters to cut out 3 circles of each size, once the cake is completely cooled: 78mm, 68mm, 58mm, and 48mm.

Carefully remove each circle of cake using a silicone spatula .

Cut the end off of the piping bag of whatever color tree you want to make first.

Pipe your first color of frosting between each cake layer, starting with the biggest layer on the bottom and working your way up to the top. Each tree should all be one single color of frosting.

Press a skewer down the center of each tree to keep it from falling over while it freezes.

Chill each tree in the freezer after you complete the stack, and then start on the next one.

Repeat until all trees are formed.

Gather sprinkles or any other decorative treats you plan to use. I used wilton mini jawbreakers for the green and blue trees and baking time club pearls for the pink tree.

Remove the first tree from the freezer, and using a bread knife, trim the stack into your preferred tree shape. I tried to make mine look like a cone.

Put the same color frosting you used between the layers into the outer piping bag .

Start piping the frosting covering the entire tree in any design you prefer. I started at the bottom and worked my way up. On every other column, I stopped before I got to the top since the bottom needs more coverage the the top.

Place each decoration onto your tree cakes with your hands or with tweezers (yes of course I have kitchen tweezers, don’t you?).

Spray with edible glitter spray .

Eat the vegan christmas cakes immediately or chill them in the fridge to test your willpower to see how long you can wait.

Ingredient Substitutions

• Nondairy Milk: Since you can’t taste the milk in this recipe, I buy 365 brand soymilk or almond milk from Whole Foods because it’s organic and cheap. Another resource for inexpensive plant-based milk is Grocery Outlet.
• Apple Cider Vinegar: If you don’t have this, you can replace it with a tablespoon of distilled white vinegar, lemon juice, or lime juice. You just need some sort of acid to interact with the baking soda.
• Flour: I always use unbleached, organic, all-purpose flour because it’s super cheap at Costco. However, you can replace it with most any flour you have at home. To make these cakes gluten-free, use a gluten-free flour blend.
• Cocoa Powder: I use fair trade, organic cocoa powder, but you can use whatever kind you have.
• Baking Soda: Out of baking soda? Replace the 1 ½ teaspoons (8g) baking soda with an extra 1 ½ tablespoons (22g) baking powder.
• Baking Powder: I use the non-aluminum baking powder, because I need all the brain cells I have left. Out of baking powder? Replace the teaspoon (5g) baking powder in this recipe with an extra quarter teaspoon (1g) baking soda.
• Sunflower Oil: I recommend using safflower, sunflower, avocado, or coconut oil for baking cakes because those oils are made for high heat, which helps you avoid transfats. However, you can use any other oil such as vegetable oil, canola oil, grapeseed oil, etc. People even make cakes with olive oil, but I don’t recommend it.
• Sugar: For the sugar in this recipe, you can use any number of sugars, as long as they’re vegan: sucanat, coconut sugar, raw sugar, organic sugar, or demurara. If you’re not sure if your sugar is vegan, you can contact the company and ask, but basically, just avoid conventional white sugar or granulated sugar, and you should be ok.
• Vanilla and/or Peppermint Extract: Flavoring and extract can be used interchangeably. The only difference is that extract is in a base of alcohol and flavoring is in a base of glycerin.
• Vegan Butter: I usually use organic whipped Earth Balance because I like the flavor and the consistency. It always works great in every recipe. If you avoid soy, they make a soy-free version too. You can use any brand of vegan butter or margarine that you prefer, but results do vary depending on the brand you choose. For instance, Miyoko’s vegan butter doesn’t work well in my opinion. The frosting comes out grainy and not creamy.
• Vegan Shortening: If you don’t have access to vegan shortening, you can replace it with additional vegan butter or margarine. I use Spectrum shortening because they get their palm oil from sustainable sources, but you can use any brand, as long as it’s vegan.
• Powdered Sugar: If you’re not sure if your powdered sugar is vegan, read my list of vegan powdered sugar brands. A 24-oz bag of 365 organic powdered sugar from Whole Foods is fairly inexpensive and comes with enough for this recipe.
• Food Coloring: I used wilton gel colors for this recipe, but you can look at my entire list of vegan food coloring for other options.

Video

Here’s a video of me and Kimmy making them.

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.

Similar Recipes

If you like cute holiday desserts, you might also like my mini wreath cakes and my snow globe cupcakes.

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