I love Holiday Baking! Snow Man Cake Recipe! #Kroger #CBias #Holidays

Hey All!

How many of you are looking forward to the Holidays? I can’t wait for the Holidays to arrive! They can’t come fast enough as this is my favorite time of the year. I love this time of year because I get to put on baking hat and go on a baking and decorating bonanza. I love searching for adorable recipes online or in magazines. Last year I found the most amazing recipe online on Disney Family Fun magazine’s website for a Snow Man cake. I loved this cake and I loved making it! I mean look at the picture below courtesy of the Family Fun website. Who wouldn’t love this cake. It’s adorable.

My teen’s favorite thing in the world for the Holidays is Snowmen. I don’t know what it is about them, but he’s obsessed with them. He’s loved them since he was a kid. I’m glad he still loves them today. I try to make him different Snowman themed food each year for the Holidays. I thought I would take this time before the Holiday craziness begins to brush up on my Holiday baking skills and make this yummy cake today so that I can be ready for the Holidays. I know my family is excited by the thought of getting to have this yummy dessert after dinner. So I went online to search for the recipe and found it rather easily on the Family Fun Site. It’s called the Smiling Snowman recipe.

I needed to get a few things from my local grocery store Ralph’s which is part of the Kroger Grocery chain in case you’ve never heard of Ralph’s if you’re not from California. If you’ve ever seen the movie “The Big Lebowski” you will know he shops at Ralph’s in the movie. I digress…

Instead of doing my usual and making a list of the things I needed, I decided to print out the recipe to take with me and just make little circles next to the items I needed, so that I can check off each item once I got them at the grocery store.

I of course checked the Ralph’s circular to see all the great sales taken place before I headed to the grocery store. I wanted to see if some of the items I needed to might be on sale. Maybe do some coupon matching from my Sunday coupon inserts and so forth. Ralph’s is the store I love to shop at most since there are about four of them in my Neighborhood alone. It’s easy to get to and they welcome coupon shoppers like myself. I needed to get a bunch of items for this recipe! I needed Flour, Baking Powder, Cocoa Powder, Baking Soda and Eggs since I was all out of those ingredients. I also needed to get some frosting, coconut shavings, and candies to decorate the snow man cake with.

I noticed flour was on sale in the circular. And candy is on sale! It’s Halloween time so of course candy is on sale. Lucky me! They are also having a cartbuster savings event that is happening through out the store according to the circular.  I couldn’t wait to see what was part of the cartbuster sale. You can get some great deals on these sales. Anything that get’s me the most for my dollar is appealing to me.

I went off to my Ralph’s  and picked up the ingredients I needed. I also picked up some groceries I needed since I was there and they were having some great deals. I quickly came home to get started on my cake. I wanted to have it done before my teen got home from school.

If you Click on the image of me above you will get to see the Google + slide show of my shopping trip to Ralphs to buy the stuff I needed for my Snow Man Cake and also you can see step by step pictures of how I made my Snow Man Cake.  Just click on the first image to get started.

My Ralph’s was filled with Halloween and Fall items but it’s starting to slowly roll in the Holiday themed items already. I like to shop for my Holiday baking items early so I’m hoping the start coming out with more soon. I found this already near the entrance.

I start shopping for pans, liners, baking cups, and sprinkles that are Holiday themed now so that I can be ready to go for the Holidays. I would say I shop maybe once or every time I see something I just need to have for the Holidays. I try to shop only using coupons but I make exceptions when it comes to Holiday Products especially for baking with.

I changed the recipe slightly than the one I found on the site. I thought the one on the Family Fun site made you do way to many steps and I like to save time, so I cut down on some steps. I also changed the candy I would use to decorate the cake slightly. I want to use candy my family would actually eat and not pick off the cake.  I did this last year and my cake came out great regardless and it came out great today as well.


Here are the Ingredients I used for my cake.

  • 1 3/4 cups cake flour
  • 1/2 cup cocoa
  • 1 1/4 tsp. baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp. baking soda
  • 1/2 tsp. salt
  • 1/2 cup butter, softened in the microwave for 15 seconds
  • 1 1/2 cups sugar
  • 3 large eggs
  • 1 tsp. vanilla extract
  • 1 cup milk
  • Whipped White or vanilla frosting
  • Shredded coconut
  • 1 black licorice Redvine
  • 1 orange gumdrop
  • 1 Fruit Roll up
  • 3 starlight mints
  • 1 small gumdrops
  • 1 small gummy worm
  • 2 brown m&m’s
  • 2 round cake pan’s. I used 9 inch pans

Here’s How I made my cake:

1. Start out by Heating the oven to 325 degrees.

2. Make the cake by mixing the flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a large mixing bowl. Mix them together by hand until smooth. Then Drop in the Milk, butter, sugar, eggs, and vanilla extract. Get out the old hand blender to help the process go faster. And mix until it’s as smooth as you can get it.

3. Spray your round pans with your Bakers Joy or Pam spray so the cakes don’t stick to the pan. Pour mix into your round pans and Bake the cakes for about 60 minutes. When done, the surface will spring back when touched and a toothpick inserted in the center will come out clean.

4. Let cakes Cool for 10-15 minutes. Then pop them out on a flat surface lined with parchment paper for easy cleaning. Cut out a smaller circle out of one of the cakes about 4 inches wide for the head. I eye ball this and it’s really not hard to cut a circle when the cake is circular already.

5. Ice the cakes with the vanilla and or white whipped frosting, then sprinkle with shredded coconut. Add the 2 Brown M&M’s for eyes, insert an orange gumdrop nose, and gummy worm smile on the face.

6. For the scarf, cut two 2-inch-wide strips from the fruit roll ups, notch the ends with a scissor and wrap around the neck of the snowman. For the buttons, use starlight mints. Finish off the snowman with two chocolate licorice arms.

That’s it your done. I think I’m ready for the Holiday Baking season don’t you. It came out pretty cute I think. I know my teen is gonna love it when he sees it. I’m not so rusty with my baking after all. I’m glad I took this day to gear up my baking skills so that they are ready to go for the Holidays. I’m glad I did this test run just to prepare. I had a blast baking this up and sharing it with you. This cake is so adorable and easy to make and you should definitely try to make it too!

What is your favorite Holiday Baking Recipe?

“Disclosure: This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias. All experiences and opinions are my own.”

Vanessa

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