Polar Bear Christmas Cake

Blue-eyed polar bear Christmas cake made with American butter cream frosting and a cooking-from-scratch pumpkin spice cake.

Bear Cakes

Bear cakes are a favorite of mine - camo bears, biker bears, and NOW a blue-eyed, polar bear Christmas cake. 

Love how the wreath turned out!

This is a "spur of the moment" cake. 

After arriving home from work at 5:30 PM,  I made the decision to start baking.

I grabbed my bear cake pan, prepped it, and whipped up a pumpkin spice cake to pour into it while the oven was preheating

While the cake was baking, I started thinking about Christmas frosting colors and decorator tips. 
Fur color was easy. I wanted an Arctic white polar bear and a green wreath.

Eye color took a little thought. However, I settled on blue because I knew it would be the perfect pop of color. Then I could add the leftover blue frosting to the bowl of green frosting for the wreath. No waste that way!

I pulled out my decorator tip container and looked through the plastic baggies containing decorator tips. As I looked through them, I thought:

No, not floral flowers or basket weave. Hmmm...maybe the #5 frosting tip for berries, eyes, nose, and paws.For the sides I wanted a LARGE tip that would cover a maximum amount of cake. I picked a Russian tip that looks like an extra large #233 grass tip, the actual #233, and a very small star tip.  

#5 frosting tip for berries and paws. #233 grass tip for the wreath.

Russian Tip was a Fail.

I spent an exasperating 20 minutes trying to pipe fur onto my bear with the Russian tip. 

• The frosting kept sticking to the tip when I released pressure on the bag.
• I tried starting on the cake and slightly above the cake. Same results. 
• Then I tried changing the angle at which I held the bag. Same results. 

After scraping the frosting back off the cake several times,

I switched to a large, 2D tip. Hence, the feathery looking fur. I filled in around the paws, face, and any bare spots left by the 2D tip with a medium open star tip.