How to Make a Snowman Cake

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We had a major snow storm this past weekend. Depending on who you ask, we had somewhere between 18 and 25 inches of snow.

I love to watch the snowfall. I love to see pictures of the snow. I even like to play outside in the snow if I’m appropriately dressed.

This weekend, I was not appropriately dressed. It was cold outside, and Joe asked and asked me to come outside to take pictures of his and Grace’s snow angels. I did, not wanting to disappoint them.

I went outside in my Crocs. You know, the ones that I wear 365 days a year – with holes in the top.

I was outside for about three minutes.

And my toes froze.

I didn’t know it at the time (because I hadn’t Googled it yet), but I had frostnip. Fortunately, it was very mild and the only lasting effects are a purply redness and slight swelling of my three middle toes on each foot. I know how lucky I am.

And how stupid, as it were.

By the way, if you ever read about how intensely painful rewarming your frozen skin is, believe it.

Oh. My. Goodness.

I tested the water with my hand and knew that it was barely tepid, not even close to warm. My toes thought it was boiling. Did I mention that it was painful?

Anyway, I’ve made lots of snowmen in my life. I love snowmen.

While I was rewarming my toes, Joe and Grace played outside.  I thought I was going to have a couple glorious and peaceful hours alone in the house, but Grace’s fingers got cold and they came in just as I was drying off my (warm but hurting) toes.

Rather than going back out into the beautiful but cold weather, we made a snowman inside.

Sorry, Dear Reader, this is another side note.

I bought a snowman-shaped cake pan the winter that I was pregnant with Grace, 2006. Every year since, Joe has harassed me about the snowman cake pan I had to have but never used.

I had to have it because I knew making a cake with my as yet unborn baby would be an awesomely fun experience, and it was.

I asked Grace is she wanted to make a snowman inside, and she did. She was puzzled, but she agreed.

The cake pan box said that a pound cake would work best, but we didn’t have one. We did, however, have an orange cake mix and a butter cake mix.

Butter won out since orange snow seemed slightly more disturbing than yellow-ish snow.

Grace and I whipped up the cake mix in our stand mixer, tossed in a couple of handfuls of dried cherries and slivered almonds, coated the pans with non-stick cooking spray and powdered sugar, and slid them into the oven.

We had a problem with the snowman’s hat. It burned before the snowman’s belly was cooked. That was a bummer, but easily solved by just not eating the hat.

Here’s our snowman just out of the oven:

And then, after I popped him out of the pans and trimmed the back so that both halves would lie flat. (Note: I think I overcooked the cake. It got awfully brown and the snowman’s features sort of went away in the darkness of the crust. It tasted amazing, but lacked the features I was hoping for.)

I used white frosting to glue the two halves together. That worked nicely –

– until the bottom half started to fall apart. Fortunately, a couple of wooden skewers kept things standing mostly upright. That allowed us to smear it with white frosting all over and stick more dried cherries on its face for eyes, a candy corn for a nose, and chocolate chips for its mouth.

That’s part of the song, right?

I was worried it wouldn’t stand up long enough to be decorated, but the skewers worked. It stood for two days until we finally got around to cutting and eating it.

Grace topped the skewers with a hat, claiming that all snowmen wear hats. I thought it looked more like a dunce cap than a snowman hat, but I kept that to myself.

I should’ve known that the cutting and eating would be disturbing to Grace, who also found the melting of her snowman in the yard to be upsetting. She wasn’t sure she could eat her friend, Frosty.

I could, I did, and he was delicious.

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