Birch Log Cake! Learn how to make this wintry, birch cake that looks just like a natural birch branch with a simple step-by-step tutorial by our contributors, Mary and Brenda Maher of Cakegirls.
Around this time of year the snow starts falling and baking season begins. As a baker, this means dozens of cookies and lots of seasonal cakes. Sometimes it’s fun to bake up your family’s traditional recipes and sometimes it’s fun to mix it up a bit. Well, in this case, we used the classic ubiquitous yule log as our inspiration and literally turned it on its side to create this more modern Winter Birch Log Cake.
This winter tree look-alike starts with three 6″ cake layers to make a really tall layered cake. You can use any cake flavor you like, but we were partial to this chocolate truffle cake. A tall cake means you have plenty of room to display your birch tree design on the sides and creating the tree bark is deceptively simple. It starts by painting dark chocolate melted candy coating in a birch tree inspired pattern and then layering it with a thin layer of white coating on top. Once firm, you can easily break the sheet of bark into shards to layer and decorate the sides of your cake. To make the snowy winter forest theme complete, we’ve added a few whimsical woodland cake novelties to add a focal point.
BIRCH LOG CAKE
a tutorial by Cakegirls
Supplies:
Layer Cake, recipe of choice
Buttercream
Dark Chocolate Candy Coating
White Candy Coating
Paintbrushes
Novelty Deer
Novelty Pine Trees
Pre made Gum paste Mushrooms
Bake your favorite 6″ round cake recipe. Make frosting then tint one cup of icing light brown, leaving the rest white. If making an 8″ round or larger cake, you will need to make two or more batches of the following birch bark.
Fill and crumbcoat your cake and place it in the fridge for 30 minutes or so, until firm. Remove from the fridge and frost just the sides of the cake in white buttercream, leaving the top empty. This doesn’t have to be perfectly smooth because you’ll be covering it with birch bark soon.
Frost the top of the cake with the light brown buttercream. Take a tapered spatula or butter knife and create circular grooves in the brown icing to mimic tree rings.
Cover a half sheet tray in parchment paper. Melt 4 ounces of Dark Chocolate Candy Coating on half power in the microwave, stirring every 30 seconds until melted. Do not overheat the coating or it could burn.
Using a paintbrush, paint knots of a tree, striations, stripes and little dots on the paper to mimic a birch tree. Fill the entire tray with pattern because you’ll need the entire tray. If your brush starts to harden, wipe the brush clean before continuing. Place your painted tray in the fridge for 2 minutes, just to chill the chocolate pattern.
Melt the 12 ounce bag of white candy coating. Then, let the white coating cool until it’s not at all warm to the touch, but still melted. 10 minutes or so.
Remove tray from refrigerator and spread all the white coating across the pan, working left to right, filling the tray entirely. The layer will look fairly thin, which is okay. Place the tray back in the fridge for 10 minutes to firm up.
Remove the chilled tray from refrigerator. Place the short end of the tray toward you. Lift the parchment paper and simultaneosly use both hands to break the sheet into large strips of bark. Don’t fret if it breaks into shards instead of strips. They’ll still work on the side of the cake.
Place the strips of bark on the sides of the cake, using some extra buttercream to adhere them if necessary. We overlapped them to get them to fit but place them on the cake however you think looks best!
Spread a little buttercream on the pine trees so they look snowy. Place trees, deer and mushroom on top of cake to finish.
YOU MAY ALSO ENJOY:
Winter Hat Cake
Christmas Cupcake Wreath
Igloo Cake
Chocolate Poinsettia Cake
Whipped Cream Cubes
Nice Idea, Good Looking.
Hello, did you use toy trees and mushrooms, and deer for the top of the cake?
& how long approximately would it take to do the decorating part of this cake?
Looking forward to hearing from you,
Jane:)
what are the ingredients needed for the decorating of this cake?
Yummy, Delicious.
SOOOO. creative and beautiful. A great cake for holidays.b
Looks so fun! Can I use white chocolate chips? I have some of those at home 🙂
In theory, tempered white chocolate or white chocolate chips would work, but both can be a little more challenging to use. The candy coating will give you much better results!
Thanks Carrie
This looks great. But… how do you cut & serve it? Do you take the “bark” off first?
Sure, you could take pieces of the bark off while cutting and then serve it on the side. A slice of cake with a shard of bark would look beautiful plated. Or maneuver your knife around the bark while slicing. Whatever you find easiest. =)
Is there a video tutorial for this cake?
Not at this time, but we’ve tried to capture all the important details in the photos and write up for you.
So… I use store bought cake mixes. How does that measure up to “your favorite 6″ cake recipe’? Does it use one mix, one and a fraction– Please advise, since I’d never even heard of 6” cake pans before seeing this absolutely fabulous idea. But even if I run off to buy them, I’d still like my go to cakes.
You could certainly use your standard pans and your go to mix. If you typically bake an 8″ or 9″ round, you’ll just need to make additional bark to ensure that you have enough to wrap around the larger cake.
If you want to give a 6″ round a try, it is a little smaller, so one box mix will give you more than enough to bake a two layer cake. Possibly enough to bake a three layer cake, depending on the brand of mix. Whatever you decide, just remember to fill your pans only 2/3 of the way full so they don’t overflow while baking.
Marvelous! Thank you for the explications!
With what do you tint the frosting light brown with? Food coloring? With ghe dark chocolate candy?
It’s tinted with food coloring. A small amount of a chocolate brown gel color will work! Enjoy!
Thank you so much for this wonderful tutorial! I made this cake for a Woodland Creatures-themed baby shower and it was a huge hit! I’ve written about it here (giving you full credit for the idea, of course!): https://alovelettertofood.com/2017/02/woodland-creatures-baby-shower/
I’m having trouble finding the animals and trees. Any suggestions? Thanks!
There are shopping links in the supply list above – hope they help!
Thank you so much! I’m not an artist by any means, but the bark turned out so well!
You could also “dust” the trees (and entire top of cake, flora and fauna included) with powdered sugar for a wintry scene. 🙂
Hi,
Are u keeping the cake in the fridge after decorating? Thanks
If the frosting or filling for your particular cake requires refrigeration, then definitely keep it in the refrigerator. The bark itself will keep best at room temperature. If needed, you could store the bark in an airtight container at room temperature until closer to your event.
Great post. Nice and easy to follow instructions. I am going to try this
This is an incredibly beautiful cake!
I just made my own version of this today for a friend’s mom on her 75th bday. Instead of the woodlands scene, I made her a red cardinal (her favorite) perched on the top. Everyone loved it and raved about it! Even the owner of the local Ruth’s Chris’ Steakhouse took pictures of it and ate a slice! I wish I could attach a picture her to show you! Fantastic tutorial!
I’m having trouble keeping the “bark” firm at room temperature. Should I try tempering the chocolate next time?
Do need to use dark chocolate candy coating or can it be another kind of chocolate.
Looks yummy and a perfect cake for Christmas.
Beautiful, great idea
Nice blog about birch-log-cake. If one wants to learn more about bakery, Whitecaps International School Of Pastry provides one of the best baking and pastry courses in Bangalore.
This is lovely! My daughter is getting married in June. The venue for both the wedding and reception will be outdoors in a park (weather permitting). I’m making their wedding cake and the bride and groom both like this idea but I have a couple of questions.
First, would the chocolate melt if it’s warm outside? The venue is in Michigan so it won’t likely be in the 90’s (I hope).
Second, I’ve seen cakes done in chocolate cages and wondered if this method would work for “caging” the cake rather than breaking it up into bark.
Thanks in advance for your reply.