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Published on November 15, 2022 by · This post may contain affiliate links ·

Holiday Cake Techniques Tutorial

Skill level: Intermediate

Guest instructor Jennifer Reese from Good Gosh Ganache is back with another set of awesome cake tutorials. In this course, Jennifer breaks down how to use techniques that could be applied to Thanksgiving or Christmas cakes, featuring a checked fondant design, edible raffia, pumpkin and ornament decorations, two different kinds of bows, and plenty of other fun details.

2:00:43 Minutes of Instruction

What You Will Learn

  • How to make two different kinds of cakes using similar techniques
  • Learn how to make a checked fondant design covering cake tiers with tips and tricks on how to line up and execute the design flawlessly
  • How to make Christmas ornaments and pumpkins and two different kinds of bows

Poster of two cakes decorated for the holidays

Tutorial Chapters

  1. Making The Thanksgiving Pattern 1:42
  2. Paneling The Thanksgiving Cake 10:22
  3. Adding The Cakeboard 24:24
  4. Making The Christmas Ornaments 28:44
  5. Making The Pumpkins 44:56
  6. Making The Thanksgiving Bow 1:02:15
  7. Making The Holiday Bow 1:11:07
  8. Color Correcting The Bows 1:17:57
  9. Making The Raffia Pt.1 1:24:26
  10. Making The Maple Leaves 1:29:35
  11. Making The Raffia Pt.2 1:31:56
  12. Decorating The Leaves & Pumpkins 1:34:52
  13. Making The Snowflakes 1:36:13
  14. Assembling The Bows 1:37:09
  15. Decorating The Thanksgiving Tier 1:41:00
  16. Making The Maple Leaves 1:50:47

This is the preview

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About Liz Marek

Liz Marek is a professional cake artist and recipe developer who has been teaching baking and cake decorating since 2008. She founded Artisan Cake Company in Portland, Oregon in 2009 and now runs Sugar Geek Show, where she publishes kitchen-tested recipes, food science explanations, and step-by-step tutorials.

Liz is best known for sculpted and hyperrealistic cakes. She won Netflix's Is It Cake? Holiday 2 in 2025 with a hyperrealistic Santa cake, and has competed on and won Food Network cake competitions. Cake Masters Magazine named her one of the top 10 cake artists in 2017. She is the author of Artisan Cake Company's Visual Guide to Cake Decorating and a graduate of the Oregon Culinary Institute.

Her focus is on explaining not just how a recipe works but why it works, so bakers can troubleshoot instead of guess. Every recipe on this site is tested before it's published.

Liz teaches full-length cake tutorials, including sculpted and hyperrealistic cakes, at Sugar Geek University.