Nativity Cake - O Holy Night

This is a cake I've been wanting to make for a while. I really believe very strongly that the birth of Christ is sometimes forgotten in the hectic commercialism of Christmas.

So, I decided I really wanted to make a nativity Christmas cake. But we didn't really need more cake to eat around the holidays, so I decided to make this lovely cake on a cake dummy. This is also my first attempt at modelling people.

The first thing I did was combine all of my blue fondants and cover my 8 inch square cake dummy with it. I stuck it down with edible glue. If you don't know what a cake dummy is, it's a piece of styrofoam the same size as a layer of cake. It is often used by bakeries for their window decorations. It can also be used in between layers to add more stability or on the top of a cake for something precariously perched on the top of a cake where real cake would be too heavy.

 Then I modelled the faces, or rather the heads of my three figures. I am making Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus. I started with Mary. I gave her a slightly pointed chin and a small little nose. In general, I'm quite happy with the face, but I felt like I need some more practice on the mouth.

 Then I placed a small ball of white fondant into the eye sockets, a tiny piece of flesh-colored fondant on top of the eye to act as an eyelid. Then, I tried to make a colored eye. I took a piece of brown fondant rolled out really thin and used a piping tip to cut it out and added some thin black on top of it. But, unfortunately, I couldn't get it small enough without cutting all the brown off, so in the end I just used a piece of black for the eyes instead of trying to give them eye colors. If I were making a larger figure, I would. But this tiny size was just too small to make. Then I rolled the thinnest logs of black fondant that I possibly could and glued them onto the eyelids to act as eyelashes.

Then I modelled Joseph's face. I made his nose longer and larger than Mary's as well as his cheekbones more prominent. I skipped a lot of detail on the mouth because I knew that he would have a full beard.

I added white balls into the eye sockets again, and a small circle of black for a pupil and a tiny piece of flesh-colored fondant to act as the eyelid. I did not include the eyelashes this time because I will paint it on later.

 Lastly, I made the baby's face about half the size as the adult's heads. His eyes are closed, so I filled his eyes with flesh-colored fondant. I also smoothed his forehead slightly and made his head very round because he's supposed to be a newborn.

 I modelled Mary's body out of green fondant. I have given birth naturally twice and I can attest that the day Jesus was born, Mary still looked pregnant. Your body doesn't start looking not pregnant for a few weeks. Also, she's undoubtedly lactating, so I made nice round breasts as well. She was supposed to be kneeling and I know from experience that she's experiencing after birth cramping, so I put her hands on her belly.

 I added the head with a toothpick and a thin piece of green fondant covering her head loosely. I also rolled brown fondant into snake shapes and tucked them in around her head to act as her hair.

 This is what she looked like from the side.

 When I started modelling Joseph's body, I decided it would be easier to assemble directly onto the cake. I decided Joseph could be standing. I made his shoulders a bit broader than Mary's, and placed one arm around Mary's shoulders. I placed his head into the body with a toothpick as well and added ears by cutting a round piece of fondant into two and glued them onto the side of his head. Then I added a piece of brown fondant under his head to act as his full beard.

 Then I added little tiny snakes of brown fondant all over his head to act as hair, as well as above his mouth to be a moustache and made extra small snakes of brown fondant for eyebrows for both Mary and Joseph.

 For the baby Jesus, I mixed some yellow fondant with a bit of brown to make a straw color. I made an oval out of straw-colored fondant and placed a white oval and the baby's head on top of it. I also carefully placed straw-colored snakes around the baby to look more like loose straw. Then I added tiny half circles to be the baby's ears. I also curled a tiny snake of brown fondant onto the top of the baby's head to be a tuft of hair. Finally, I got out a tiny paintbrush I only use for baking and mixed a bit of pink food coloring with clear alcohol to give the people's mouths and cheeks a bit of color and used the same paintbrush with undiluted brown food coloring to paint on the baby's eyebrowns and eyelashes as well as Joseph eyelashes.

 As I final touch, I used my star and circle cutters to cut out a bunch of stars out of yellow fondant and placed them all around the cake. The largest shooting star was placed directly below the Holy Family as a reminder that a new star appeared on the day of his birth. The other stars were distributed semi-evenly around the sides of the cake.

 I really love how this cake (dummy) turned out. I think it's really beautiful. I'm super proud of my modelling skills and I think it will only get better with practice.

 This cake reminds me of the song O Holy Night:

 O Holy Night. The stars are brightly shining. It is the night of our dear Savior's birth.

 Long lay the world in sin and error pining. 'Til he appeared and the soul felt His worth.

 A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices. For yonder breaks the new and glorious morn.

 Fall on your knees. O hear the angel voices. O night divine. O night when Christ was born.

 O night divine. O night, o night divine.

To watch the whole process on our YouTube channel, click here: https://youtu.be/BfFKwKiW8i8
Um das ganze Prozess auf YouTube anzuschauen, klickt hier: https://youtu.be/c3dL6i5rFeQ