Santa Down the Chimney Cake

Santa Down the Chimney Cake – my last Christmas cake this season! It’s not only a funny cake that I’m sure your kids would enjoy but it’s also super super delicious – walnut cake with white chocolate and walnuts filling and orange filling. This is probably one of my favourite cakes so far!

As usual, for the cake and filling I will list all the ingredients but you can find step-by-step pictures and instructions in the How To’s section or by following the links below.

Time: 250 min, Prep: 180 min Cook: 40 min if using two baking pans + 30 min for the fillings
Servings: ~24-28

Ingredients:

For walnut cake ( x2):

8 eggs
45 ml water (8 Tbsp)
240 g sugar
4 Tbsp ground walnuts
1 pouch vanilla sugar
220 g all-purpose flour, sifted

You have to double the ingredients above to make two 24 cm ( 9.5 inch) square cakes.

For white chocolate filling walnuts:

500 ml whipping cream
300 g white chocolate chips or grated chocolate
14 g gelatin
2 Tbsp rum extract
200 g ground walnuts

Note that I only mixed the ground hazelnuts with 2/3 of the chocolate filling and saved the remaining to crumb coat the cake (instead of using buttercream).

For orange filling:

500 ml whipping cream, at room temperature
4 egg yolks
Zest from 1 orange
8 Tbsp (1/2 cup) sugar
1 cup orange juice + 8 Tbsp (~ 250ml / the juice from 3 oranges)
4 Tbsp (3/4 cup) powder sugar, if you’re using unsweetened whipping cream
25 g unflavoured gelatin

For syrup to moisten the cake:

Juice from 2 oranges
4 Tbsp sugar

For covering and decorating the cake:

3 pounds dark red (brick red) fondant – I mixed leaf green fondant & Christmas red and came up with that colour
¼ brown or black fondant
Impression mat – brick
Some cornstarch or powdered sugar for dusting
A bit of red, white, black fondant for making Santa
Gold dusting powder and a few drops of vodka to paint Santa’s buckle
Fondant tools: smoother (or palm of your hands), roller, cutter (or a regular knife), blade or flower leaf tool
Edible glue – water works just fine
White cotton candy for the snow
White or ivory decorating icing tube with a #2 tip for the mortar (optional); you could use royal icing as well

Directions:

Make your cakes, the orange and white chocolate ganache fillings and the syrup (bring orange juice and sugar to a boil and let it cool off).

Cut each cake horizontally in two.

Line the pans in which you baked the cakes with plastic foil. Place the first layer in the pan, moist it with sugar syrup and evenly cover the layer with half of the orange filling.

Place the second layer on top and moist it with sugar syrup. Cover with plastic foil and refrigerate for a few hours or overnight. Follow the same steps for the second cake.

Remove cakes from pans and place the first cake on your cake board or stand. Spread the white chocolate filling with walnuts over and place the second cake on top.

Crumb coat the cake with the remaining white chocolate filling (without the walnuts) and let it set in the fridge.

Use a measuring tape or a piece of string to measure the top and sides of the cake. So if you measured 9.5 inches across the top and your cake is 6 inches tall that is 21.5 inches of cake in total so you need to roll out the fondant at least 21.5 inches.

Sprinkle some powdered sugar onto your work surface and roll out the dark red fondant.

Gently lift fondant over rolling pin and place it on top of the cake.

Smooth the fondant with the palm of your hands starting from the top.

Trim the edges at the bottom.

Take the impression mat, put the razed side towards the fondant and press it. I used the flower leaf tool to make the indentations / lines more visible.

Roll out the brown or black fondant. Cut out a 8.5 inch square, brush the top of the cake with some water and place the brown fondant on top.

For the mortar, pipe the icing into the embossed lines and use your finger to wipe off any excess.

For the snow, press some cotton candy around the sides of the cake as seen in the picture.

Shape the body and legs out of red fondant. Shape the two boots from black fondant.

Cut a thin strip of black fondant for the belt. Make the buckle out of white fondant and paint it with the gold dusting powder mixed with a few drops of vodka. Attach it to the black belt using some water or edible glue. Attach the belt to the body using some water.

I used toothpicks to attach the legs to the body and the boots. Attach white strips of fondant around the belly and the legs/boots using some water. Using the flower veining tool, make small creases around the knees.

Shape a sack from the red fondant and shape it using your fingers and the flower veining tool to give the impression of toys inside. Roll a thin sausage of white fondant and wrap it around the top of the sack. I made two candy canes as well using dark red and white fondant and placed them in the sack.