Ok, folks. Christmas is quickly approaching. If you’ve thought about bringing a festive cake to your family celebration, you better get baking soon!

But you don’t have to spend hours and hours on a cake for it to look gorgeous, elegant, and Christmas-y!

Make a cake that looks like a gift!

Here’s one I did for my friend Nikki’s office holiday party:

It’s a simple buttercream-iced cake with a fondant bow. You could slap that together in a couple of hours, right?!

Here’s a close-up of the bow and the gift tag:

Next up, here’s a display cake I made for the showroom. It’s covered with fondant and airbrushed gold. Again, the bow is made out of fondant.

Here’s a similar concept, where the cake was covered in white fondant and topped with a big loopy gift bow. Here, you have to have a little more time because each of those loops has to completely dry before you can assemble the bow.

And, if you’re feeling particularly ambitious or you’re trying to feed a small army, here’s some inspiration for you:

That’s 4 cakes covered in white fondant and decorated with blue fondant box tops, ribbons, and bows.

Will you be making a cake for your get-together this week?