How to Decorate a Christmas Cake With Ribbon Candy to Look Like a Present

Decorate a Christmas cake with holiday-colored ribbon candy.

The shape of ribbon candy is formed by pulling it, as warm sugar, into flattened strips and then folding it back and forth on itself to form ribbon effects. The candy is often made in mint flavor with the addition of flavored extract. Colors are added with food color dyes. Because the candy is so festive and decorative, it is often used to decorate cakes. You can even use it to make a Christmas cake look like a present.

Things You'll Need

• Christmas cake, iced by not decorated
• 1 cup light corn syrup
• 3 cups granulated sugar
• 1/4 cup water
• 1/2 tsp. peppermint extract
• Green and red food coloring
• Four cookie sheets
• Kitchen shears
• Cooking oil
• Plastic gloves
• Nonstick cooking spray
• Large saucepan
• Candy thermometer
• Wooden spoon
• Heat-safe cutting board or marble slab
• Heat-safe spatula or bench scraper
• Tape measure

Instructions

1. Decide how you want to design the decorations on your cake. If you want to make it look like it's a gift-wrapped present, measure the sides and the top where each piece of "ribbon" would be. Set aside the cake, and write the measurements down for later.

2. Spray four cookie sheets with nonstick cooking spray and set aside. Preheat your oven to 200 degrees F.

3. Add the corn syrup, sugar and water to the saucepan. Boil over medium heat and stir constantly until the sugar is dissolved. Insert your candy thermometer, and continue to cook until the candy reaches the soft-crack stage -- 285 degrees F. Stop stirring once you've inserted the thermometer.

4. Remove the candy from the heat, add the mint extract and stir to combine them. Pour one-third of the candy mixture onto one of the prepared cookie sheets. Place the cookie sheet into the warm oven. Pour another third of the candy mixture onto a prepared cookie sheet, and drizzle green food coloring on top. Then place this cookie sheet into the oven as well.

5. Mix the red food coloring into the remainder of the candy. Pour the candy onto a heat-safe cutting board or a marble slab and allow it to sit until it forms a skin. This should only take a few minutes.

6. Spray a heat-safe spatula or the bench scraper with cooking spray. Work the red candy by pushing it back and forth across the slab, as it begins to cool. Allow the candy to cool enough to be handled. While you're waiting, put on the gloves and spray them with cooking spray.

7. Pick up the candy with both hands and pull it in opposite directions, as you stretch it into a long rope. Continue to pull the rope into a long, thin strand. Pull and twist the candy continually until it becomes satin-like and is opaque in color. When the candy is just barely warm but still pliable, pull it into a 2-inch thick strand, and place on the remaining cookie sheet. Place that sheet into the oven, and remove the sheet with the clear candy syrup. Your pulled candy will stay pliable while you work the other batches.

8. Repeat the pulling procedure with the clear candy syrup until the candy becomes pearly white. Pull it into a 2-inch log like the previous red candy, and place it into the oven. Follow by pulling the green candy in the same manner until it becomes an opaque green color, and make this into a 2-inch log.

9. Remove all cookie sheets and candy from the oven. Cut 5-inch pieces from each of the three candy logs, and lay them next to one another on the fourth cookie sheet. Make sure the white candy is in the middle. Pull the candies together, molding them as they get thinner. Pull them until you end up with a thin piece of tri-colored candy about 1 inch in height.

10. Cut four strips of the candy with oiled kitchen shears to the lengths of the "ribbons" you want on your cake for the wrapping.

11. Set the ribbons on one of the empty cookie sheets, and return the rest of the candy to the warm oven.

12. Form each ribbon into a shape that will fit over the cake top and down the sides, placing them onto the cake. Gently push the ribbons onto the icing just enough for them to stick to the cake. If your icing is fondant, add a small amount of royal icing to the bottom side of the ribbons to act as glue to hold them onto the cake.

13. Cut strips from the remaining candy and immediately push them back and forth onto one another into a ripple shape or into the shape of a bow for the center of the cake. Add your "bow" to the top of the cake to cover the four ends of the ribbons at the center. Place a dollop of cake icing under the bow to glue it in place. The length of the strips will be determined by how large your central decoration will be.

Tips & Warnings

• If the ribbons begin to get too hard to work with, place them back into the warm oven just long enough to make them pliable. But don't leave them in there too long, or they will melt.

• Ribbons will get very hard quickly when left at room temperature; but, if you leave them out exposed to air for long periods they tend to get sticky. Wrap them with cellophane or plastic wrap to keep them from getting soft.