Nutcracker Birthday Cake

This Nutcracker Birthday Cake is decorated with cardstock print outs, royal icing transfers, and a buttercream Christmas tree with a shortbread cookie star.

My daughter decided on a Nutcracker "Sweet" theme for her 10th birthday. I have always wanted to do this theme, and I envisioned lots of pastels for the color scheme, likely channeling some Sugar Plum Fairy vibes.

She wanted a Mocha Cheesecake for her birthday cake. While the color of dark brown did not exactly fit with the pastels, I came up with a design that I thought worked well, especially given the Cherry Cordial Mice. She loved it!

This was one of my favorite birthday dessert tables I've created!

Jump to:

• Equipment
• Ingredients
• Mocha Cheesecake
• Decorated Christmas Tree
• Royal Icing Transfers
• Cherry Cordial Mice
• Paper Cut Outs
• Display
• Gluten Free Option
• 📖 Recipe

Equipment

• Printed cardstock Nutcracker ballet figures
• toothpicks
• Scotch tape
• disposable piping bags
• 1 grass piping tip
• piping bag tip coupler
• glass Christmas tree candy jar

Ingredients

• 1 cake or cheesecake, such as a Mocha Cheesecake
• 1 batch Easy Vanilla Buttercream
• light green food coloring liquid or gel
• white or pink sugar pearls
• 1 star shaped gold painted Iced Vanilla Shortbread Cookie
• Wilton Edible Accents gold and silver stars
• Wilton white cake sparkles
• Royal Icing Snowflakes
• Cherry Cordial Mice

Mocha Cheesecake

I used a Mocha cheesecake here, but any cake or cheesecake will work. Other full size cheesecakes include the Bailey's Irish Cream Cheesecake or my Cheesecake Factory Copycat Godiva Chocolate Cheesecake. Almost Fudge Gateau is a shorter cake that is not quite as tall as a cheesecake. Chocolate Layer Cake is great and can be covered with ganache or vanilla buttercream.

I transferred the cheesecake to a white cake stand for serving.

Then, I decorated the top with Wilton white cake sparkles and also Wilton gold and silver edible stars. It was then time to work on the Christmas tree.

Decorated Christmas Tree

To create the iconic large Christmas tree that is essential to the Nutcracker Ballet story, I decided to pipe pastel green tinted Easy Vanilla Buttercream on a glass Christmas tree candy jar, similar to this one, using a grass piping tip.

I use the grass tip anytime I'm piping grass, of course, but it also works for piping fur, like on the Cookie Monster Cake.

I scattered sugar pearls over the buttercream to represent ornaments on the tree.

For the star, I placed a single Iced Vanilla Shortbread Cookie cut with a star shape into the buttercream at the top of the tree. This star was previously painted with gold luster dust dissolved in alcohol. See more details in my Painted Watercolor Cookie recipe for information on how to paint cookies with gold luster dust.

I made extra star cookies that I decorated with white, silver and rose gold sanding sugar, and also used this same dough to make the Snowflake Cookies.

Royal Icing Transfers

See my Royal Icing Snowflakes post for step by step details on how to make these snowflake royal icing transfers.

I used the same method to create the number "10," which I placed on the side of the cake.

I also stuck one set into the side of the buttercream tree.

Cherry Cordial Mice

See my Cherry Cordial Mice post for details on how to make these cute, yet delicious, decorative mice that I used on the cake stand surrounding the cake.

Paper Cut Outs

I printed these Nutcracker ballet figures on white cardstock, then cut around them and taped them to toothpicks.

Then, I simply inserted the toothpicks about half way into the cake so the figures were sticking up out of the cake.

Display

To display the cake, I placed the white cake stand on top of a round hammered silver tray and covered the tray with faux snow.

Gluten Free Option

My Mocha Cheesecake is naturally gluten free if made with gluten free chocolate sandwich cookies. My Chocolate Layer Cake is also great made with gluten free flour.

📖 Recipe