You’ve made your Christmas cake – now for the fun part. Here’s how to transform it into a cuddly polar bear using icing and desiccated coconut. This design suits a tall cake with a 16-18cm diameter.

1. Make buttercream by beating 250g very soft butter until smooth. Add 500g icing sugar and 1 tsp vanilla extract and whisk until fluffy. Put 125g desiccated coconut in a bowl.

2. To make the nose, use a ring cutter to trim 2 small white chocolate cookies or biscuits down to 4cm in diameter and sandwich together with buttercream. Cover the sides of the stack with buttercream, and press into the coconut. Set aside.

3. To make the ears, cover another 2 separate cookies with buttercream and coconut. Sit the cake on a sheet of baking paper and spread all over with buttercream, keeping a couple of tablespoonfuls aside. Sprinkle the remaining coconut over the top of the cake and press onto the sides. Dust with edible blue or silver glitter spray, if you like.

4. For the eyes and nose, roll out 50g ready-to-roll black icing. Cut 2 rounds for eyes, a larger round for the nose, and 2 eyebrows. Press the stack of cookies into the centre front of the cake, as the nose, using some buttercream to attach it.

5. Stick the circle of black icing on the nose. Add the eyebrows and eyes, piping on blobs of buttercream to create pupils. Stick on the ears.

More ideas:

Gingerbread village Christmas cake

Christmas lights cake