Copycat Little Debbie Christmas tree cakes

Little Debbie snack cakes are as big a part of our youth as Rainbow Brite and cassette players. However delicious these little cakes are, we can’t say they’re exactly organic or preservative-free. To make them a bit healthier, we made our own.

Don’t worry, these are so easy you’ll never want to buy another snack cake at the store again. It’s as simple as bake, stamp, frost and glaze. Plus, a little bit of sprinkling, too. Just watch out, you may eat more of these than your kids.

Copycat Little Debbie Christmas tree cakes recipe

Yields about 6 cakes

Ingredients:

• 1 box chocolate cake mix (plus ingredients to make it)
• 1 batch vanilla buttercream (use this recipe)
• 6 cups white candy melts
• 4-6 tablespoons canola oil
• Christmas sprinkles
• Red icing gel
• Christmas tree cookie cutter

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a standard sheet cake pan with nonstick cooking spray. Mix the cake mix and all of the ingredients together until smooth. Pour into the sheet pan and bake for 35-45 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Let cool completely.
2. Once cooled, stamp out Christmas tree shapes with the cookie cutters. Using a sharp knife, slice the Christmas trees in half. Spread the top of one of the Christmas trees with frosting and sandwich the other half on top of it. Repeat until you have 6 sandwich cakes.
3. Melt the white candy melts in a microwave-safe bowl. Stir in the canola oil until white chocolate is completely melted. Add the trees, one at a time, to the mix and use a spoon to liberally coat. To remove, use a fork and place on a wire cooling rack. Repeat until all of the cakes are coated in white chocolate.
4. Working while the chocolate is still wet, sprinkle the tops of the trees with holiday sprinkles. Using the red icing gel, make a few ribbons across for garland. Add some additional sprinkles.
5. Let stand at room temperature until chocolate has set, about 30 minutes.

More copycat recipes

Restaurant copycat: Cheesy pizza bread
Copycat Cheesecake Factory carrot cake cheesecake
Copycat Starbucks gingerbread biscotti