Category: Winter Time

Snow Cute Snack Cakes

It’s a winter wonderland in a sweet snackable size. These small red velvet cakes are perfect for gifting or sharing. The recipe makes four. That’s enough for you to enjoy and to make a few others smile, too. Divide the cake batter evenly among four disposable 23 oz. foil snack cake pans and bake. Let […]

Snow Cute Snack Cakes

It’s a winter wonderland in a sweet snackable size. These small red velvet cakes are perfect for gifting or sharing. The recipe makes four. That’s enough for you to enjoy and to make a few others smile, too.

Red Velvet Cake Batter

Divide the cake batter evenly among four disposable 23 oz. foil snack cake pans and bake.

Let cool completely and then you can get to decorating.

Decorating Snowmen Snack Cakes

Tint half of the frosting a light blue and the remaining frosting leave white. Start out by frosting about 2/3 of each cake with light blue frosting. Fill in the remaining area with white/vanilla frosting and sprinkle white sanding sugar on top to give the ground a snowy effect.

To help guide where to place your snowman, you can use two circle cutters about 2.25 inches and 1.5 inches in diameter to make impressions in the frosting. Then just pipe inside the lines. 

Decorating Snowmen Snack Cakes

Start by piping the larger circle for the snowman body and sprinkle more white sanding sugar on top. I held the cutter in position over the frosting and sprinkled through the opening of the cutter to help keep it from going everywhere. Then repeat with the smaller cutter for the snowman’s head.

To make the faces, you can use orange coated sunflower seeds for carrot noses, brown or black jimmies for the mouths, brown rainbow chip sprinkles or black sugar pearls for eyes and buttons. Then press in some m&m’s candies for colorful earmuffs. 

Use the remaining frosting to tint green and then fill in the sides of the snack cake with some sweet little trees, too. Pipe them using a a Wilton #18 decorating tip.

IMPORTANT: as you are frosting and decorating, place the lid on periodically to make sure your frosting doesn’t get too high. If it does, the lid will flatten your design. You can also slice and remove any excess dome from the cake before decorating if you are worried about it.

Snowman Snack Cake

Snow cute! To fill in the rest of your frosted canvas, pipe two curved lines using the green frosting and place pastel coated sunflower seeds in position for colorful lights. 

You can also sprinkle a little bit of powdered sugar on top if the trees for an extra little snowy effect. Wait just before gifting to sprinkle because the sugar will eventually absorb into the frosting and disappear.

But, you can also get your hands on some non-melting sugar that won’t disappear. Yay!

Snow Cute Snack Cakes
Yield: four individual snack cakes

Snow Cute Snack Cakes

Ingredients

RED VELVET CAKE

  • 2-1/2 cups all purpose flour
  • 2 cups granulated sugar
  • 1 Tablespoon natural unsweetened cocoa
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 cup vegetable oil
  • 1 cup buttermilk
  • 1 Tablespoon white distilled vinegar
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 1 to 1.5 oz. red food coloring

CREAM CHEESE FROSTING

  • 8 oz. cream cheese, room temperature
  • 1 cup butter, room temperature
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 6 cups confectioners' sugar

DECORATIONS

  • blue gel icing color
  • green gel icing color
  • white sanding sugar
  • red M&M's
  • pastel coated sunflower seeds
  • orange sunflower seeds
  • brown or black jimmies
  • black sugar pearls
  • brown rainbow chip sprinkles

Instructions

  1. For the cakes: Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Then grease and flour four 23 oz. foil pans.
  2. Lightly stir eggs in a medium bowl with a wire whisk. Add remaining liquid ingredients and stir together with whisk until blended. Set aside.
  3. Place all the dry ingredients in your mixing bowl and stir together really good with another wire whisk.
  4. Add wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix on medium-high for about a minute or until completely combined.
  5. Pour batter evenly into prepared foil cake pans (about 1-1/4 cups batter for each) and then drop the pans on the counter a few times to release any air bubbles.
  6. Bake for about 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
  7. Allow cakes to cool completely and then make the frosting.
  8. For the frosting: Sift confectioners' sugar and set aside. In a mixer, beat cream cheese and butter on high until creamy. Add vanilla. Then, add the confectioners' sugar in batches, scraping down the sides in between each addition.
  9. To decorate: Frost the top two-thirds of the cakes with light blue tinted frosting. Frost the bottom third with white frosting and sprinkle white sanding sugar on top to look like snow on the ground. Use a 2.25 inch cutter to make an impression for the snowman's body in the frosting and then a 1.5 inch cutter to make an impression for the snowman's head. Then pipe the body first and sprinkle white sanding sugar on top. Pipe the head overlapping the body a bit and sprinkle more white sanding sugar on the head, trying your best not to get it on the rest of the cake. To decorate the faces, place an orange coated sunflower seed in position for the nose, black sugar pearls for the eyes, brown or black jimmies for the smile, rainbow chip sprinkles for the buttons and M&M's for the earmuffs. You can also pipe trees on either side of the snowman with green tinted frosting. Use the same green to pipe two curved lines above the snowman and place pastel coated sunflower seeds in position for lights.

Notes

Use these individual foil containers to bake the cake in.

Keep checking as you are frosting and decorating and place the lid on periodically to make sure your frosting doesn't get too high. If it does, the lid will flatten your design. You can also slice and remove any excess dome from the cake before decorating if you are worried about it.

© Bakerella
Snowman Snack Cakes

Snowman Snack Cakes

Enjoy alone or with family and friends!

Cocoa Cupcakes

It’s cold outside and these cocoa cupcakes are a fun way to stay cozy and cute inside. They are  reminiscent of hot chocolate but presented as a sweet little cake with cocoa frosting and the tiniest marshmallow bits to top them off and tie the whole look together. The best part is these cupcakes are […]

Cocoa Cupcakes

It’s cold outside and these cocoa cupcakes are a fun way to stay cozy and cute inside. They are  reminiscent of hot chocolate but presented as a sweet little cake with cocoa frosting and the tiniest marshmallow bits to top them off and tie the whole look together.

Chocolate Cupcakes

The best part is these cupcakes are super easy to pull together and you can mix all the ingredients for the cupcakes in one bowl. I always love that.

Hot Chocolate Frosting (more…)

Frosted Frostys – Soft Sugar Cookies

Let’s start the year off with the most delicious frosted soft sugar cookies. The kind you can sink your teeth into and it feels like you are biting into sweet little pillows of sugar and vanilla. I made some of them for my Christmas Eve Party after I realized all of my treats included peanuts […]

Let’s start the year off with the most delicious frosted soft sugar cookies. The kind you can sink your teeth into and it feels like you are biting into sweet little pillows of sugar and vanilla.

I made some of them for my Christmas Eve Party after I realized all of my treats included peanuts or peanut butter and my niece wouldn’t be able to have any because of her allergies. So I thought I would try a sugar cookie recipe from my friend Maria’s cookbook, Two Peas and Their Pod, that I had been coveting. And oh my gosh… these cookies are now on my must make list forever. I usually make cutout sugar cookies for decorating, but didn’t want to go to all that trouble for a last minute Christmas addition, so I just frosted these and sprinkled them with green sanding sugar for the evening. And over the next few days, every time I would eat another cookie, all I could say is how freaking good they were, so I decided to make them again for you guys here on the blog. I just dressed them up a bit and turned them into frosty little snowmen and now I love them even more.

The dough is soft and luxurious. I scooped the dough out and placed on a parchment lined cookie sheet.

After that roll them into balls and press them flat (but still thick) with the bottom of a glass sprayed with oil and dipped in sugar to keep the glass from sticking to the dough.

Sidenote: Make sure you press them instead of leaving them scooped or rolled. I tried baking a scooped shape and it just did not look very cute.

These only bake for 8 minutes. No more. And you’ll end up with the softest texture.

They’re a little round blank canvas for decorating with buttercream or sprinkles or you can even just leave them blank. You won’t be disappointed.

The recipe makes about 24, but you can double it if you like. And I would highly recommend that if you think you’ll give any away to friends or family.

But since I like to break out the cute over here on the site, let’s breakdown how I turned these into frosty little snowman faces.

Whip up the buttercream frosting and use a small cookie scoop to place some right on top of a cookie.

Gently turn the cookie over and roll it around in a dish of sanding sugar to coat. Be gentle here and press with your hand flat because they could break easily if you press the wrong way. They are that soft.

Once coated in sanding sugar, you can use your hand to help shape the frosting into a pretty mound.

Then add sprinkles for facial features. Start with pink confetti sprinkles for cheeks, black sugar pearls for eyes, black jimmies for a big smile and then orange coated sunflower seeds for a carrot nose.

Make sure to frost and decorate as you go and insert the sprinkles enough so they stick.

Snow cute!!!!

And even more delicious. I gave these away to several people and more than one came back to say they were amazing or the best sugar cookies they’ve had. I agree.

Print Recipe
Yield: 24 cookies

Easy Frosted Sugar Cookies  

Ingredients:

Sugar Cookies
  • 2-3/4 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
  • 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
  • 1/2 cup (8 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
  • 1/2 cup vegetable or canola oil
  • 1/2 cup granulated sugar, plus another 1/4 cup to use for flattening cookies
  • 1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar
  • 1 large egg
  • 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
  • 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
  • nonstick cooking spray
Frosting
  • 3/4 cup (12 tablespoons) unsalted butter, room temperature
  • 3 cups confectioners’ sugar, sifted
  • 3 tablespoons heavy cream or milk
  • 1-1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
  • 3/4 teaspoon almond extract
Snowman Decorations
  • White sanding sugar
  • Black sugar pearls
  • Orange coated sunflower seeds
  • pink confetti sprinkles
  • black jimmies

Directions:

  1. Make the Cookies:  Preheat oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.
  2. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, cream of tartar and salt and set aside.
  3. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together the butter, oil, 1/2 cup of the granulated sugar, and the confectioners’ sugar until smooth. Add the egg, vanilla and almond extract. Mix until combined. Add the dry ingredients and mix on low until just combined.
  4. Scoop the dough using a 1-1/2 inch scoop and place on baking sheet about 2 inches apart for evenly sized cookies. Roll the dough into balls. Not all the cookies will fit on the sheet for one batch.
  5. Pour the reserved 1/4 cup of granulated sugar into a small bowl or dish. Spray the bottom of a drinking glass with nonstick cooking spray. Press the bottom of the glass into the sugar to evenly coat.
  6. Press the sugared glass bottom on top of each cookie dough ball and press down gently. Repeat for each cookie and reapply cooking spray as needed.
  7. Bake the cookies for 8 minutes. Do not overbake. They will be light in color and soft in the center. Let cool 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. (Note: I like to slide the the parchment paper and cookies off my flat baking sheet and onto the counter to cool just a couple of minutes after they come out of the oven.
  8. Repeat with remaining dough.
  9. Make the Frosting:  In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter until smooth. Add the confectioners’ sugar and mix until combined. Add the extracts and and one teaspoon of milk at a time for desired consistency. Beat until smooth.
  10. Spread buttercream frosting on cookies and decorate with sprinkles. Store in an air tight container at room temperature for up to 3 days.
  11. To Decorate as Snowmen:  (you’ll need to double the buttercream recipe) Scoop the buttercream using a 1-1/2 inch scoop and place on top of a cookie. Gently press the cookie and frosting into a small dish filled with white sanding sugar. Very gently rock and rotate to coat the surface. Use the palm of your hand to reshape into a nice mound. Place confetti sprinkles in position for cheeks, sugar pearls for eyes, black jimmies for a dotted mouth and orange sunflower seeds for noses. Press firm and gentle so they are secure. Decorate one cookie at a time to make sure the sprinkles attach.
Note: I've made these cookies using White Lily flour and King Arthur Flour. The photos in this post are made with King Arthur flour and yielded a thicker cookie. The White Lily flour is a softer wheat and yield thinner and wider cookies than the ones in this post. Both cookies were still soft and delicious but I would recommend spreading the buttercream on with a knife if your cookies bake thinner and wider instead of scooping as they might not be thick/sturdy enough to support a larger scoop of frosting.
© 2019 Two Peas and Their Pod Cookbook by Maria Lichty

They make me smile … hope they’ll make you smile, too.

Enjoy!

Here’s the link to Maria’s book on Amazon and also a link to a recent post where I made her Biscoff Oatmeal Sandwich Cookies.