Christmas Lights Cake (that actually lights up!)

A fun Christmas cake that lights up!

This festive Christmas light cake truly illuminates! It’s a terrific way to spice up your Christmas gathering. This Christmas cake step-by-step cake decorating instruction will guide you through the process.

I had a lot of fun crafting this one. The beauty of this cake is that it is entirely made of buttercream (no fondant) and can be made in whatever color combination you like.

By the way, there is a video towards the bottom of this page that explains everything.

You also don’t need any big plumbing abilities for this one. The piping tips perform all of the work.

All you’ll be doing is piping little stars for the lights and a shell border around the cake.

I’ve even included a design for piping the lights. I AM NOT GOOD AT FREE-HANDING ANYTHING, so if that describes you, I have you covered.

I’ll provide a link to that file in the materials list.

Let’s get right to the instruction, and remember that there’s a video towards the bottom of this page that will teach you everything.

There are affiliate links in this post. I earn money as an Amazon Associate by making qualifying purchases.

Supplies Needed to Make this Christmas Lights Cake:

• A cooked cake (I used a three-layer, eight-inch circular cake). You can find my vanilla cake recipe here and my chocolate cake recipe here.
• Buttercream
• Gel food coloring (I used the neon colors)
• Christmas light template (click here to download)
• Icing spatula
• Icing smoother
• Toothpicks
• 1M icing tip (for the top and bottom borders), #5 round tip for light cable and light tops, and #18 star tip for Christmas lights
• Piping bags
• Couplers for icing (optional, but makes life SO much simpler)
• Christmas sprinkles (optional)
• Multicolored LED balloon lights
• Press-n-seal plastic food wrap

Steps to Make this Christmas Cake:

Prepare your cake:

First, bake your cake, then fill it and spread it twice with green buttercream before chilling it before proceeding to the following stage.

Making the outlines and using the template on the cake:

Next, print the template from the supply list (at the beginning of this lesson).

If you think you can free-hand it, go for it! I couldn’t do it, so I used the template.

Remove a few of the lights. If you like, you may remove them altogether. You’ll need to cut out multiples since they’ll become dirty as you use them.

Lightly press a Christmas light onto the cake, then trace around it with a toothpick and remove the light template.

Continue drawing the lights all the way around the cake, being careful to draw lines for the cable that joins each light as you go.

Just do a nice sort of random pattern of lights.

Once you’ve sketched and traced everything around your cake, take a wooden dowel and poke a hole in the center of each light you drew out.

Piping onto the Christmas Cake:

With your round tip, pipe dark green over the lines you made for the wire connecting the lights.

My hands are quite shaking, so perhaps you’ll do a better job than I did.

Now, using your star tip, pipe stars over each light that you drew.

Do this for several different colors.

Next, using the same color as the wires, take the round tip and pipe straight lines for the light connections.

Finishing up the cake:

Pipe a big shell border around the bottom of the cake using the 1M piping tip.

Pipe some dollops on top and decorate with Christmas sprinkles if desired.

Remove the plastic ring from the mini LED balloon lights.

Turn them on by twisting them. (Don’t worry, they’ll remain light for a LONG time; mine lasted more than ten hours.)

Make sure the lights are turned on before wrapping the metal component with press-n-seal plastic wrap.

You don’t want to miss this step because you want the metal component to be wrapped in plastic wrap so it doesn’t come into contact with the cake.

Now, I’m not sure what the equivalent of press-n-seal wrap is in other countries. You could use standard plastic wrap, but it won’t attach to itself very well. (I’ve included a link to the press-n-seal wrap in the supplies list.)

Once all of your lights are switched on and wrapped, just insert them into the holes you made in your cake.

That’s all! I hope you have a great time with this one! Remember that the lights will remain on for hours and hours, so add them last.

Video for Making This Cake:

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