Sally and Amy's I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas Tree

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Sally and Amy's I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas Tree

Course:

Dessert

Cuisine:

Christmas

For the gingerbread cake:

1. Preheat oven to 350F/180C degrees. Grease an 8”, 7”, two 6”, and two 4” cake pans with cooking spray. Line each pan with parchment paper. Whisk together your dry ingredients, and set aside. In a stand mixer fitted with bowl and paddle attachment, beat together your sugar and butter until light and fluffy. Slowly add in your eggs and molasses until fully combined. Slowly add in your hot water until batter is fully combined. Divide batter evenly among cake pans according to pan size. Bake for 25 minutes or until a wooden skewer comes out clean. Allow cakes to cool for 10 minutes before turning them out on a wire rack. Place cake layers into the freezer to expedite the cooling process.
2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Whisk baking powder, kosher salt, and flour in a medium size bowl until well combined, set aside.Cream butter and sugar until smooth.Beat in vanilla extract and egg. Slowly add dry ingredients to wet ingredients until well combined and dough is pulling away from the sides of the mixing bowl. DO NOT CHILL, turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Roll dough to ¼ inch thickness. Cut cookies with a miniature Christmas cookie cutters and a star cookie cutter and bake for 8-10 minutes or until the edges turn slightly golden. Remove cookies from the oven and allow to cool for 1-2 minutes on your baking sheet, before transferring to a cooling rack. Place cookies into the freezer to expedite the cooling process.
3. Meanwhile, make the buttercream. Meanwhile, make the butter cream by whipping the butter over medium speed in a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. Slowly add in the confectioner's sugar. While mixing over medium speed, add vanilla extract, then add heavy whipping cream one tablespoon at a time until a smooth buttercream forms. Load the buttercream into a piping bag.
4. Once the cakes are cool, spread buttercream on the largest layer. Add each layer from largest to smallest with buttercream in between each layer. Use a dowel to secure the layers before trimming the cake layers into the shape of a Christmas tree. Crumb coat the trimmed cake. Pipe buttercream details onto the tree using a Wilton 172 and Wilton 1M piping tip.
5. Pipe buttercream onto cooled cookies and gently press the cookies into colored sanding sugars.
6. Once the tree is fully frosted, decorate the tree with sugar cookies and pearls. Place the star cookie on the top of the tree.