Smiling Snowman Cake

I stumbled upon a recipe on the Family Fun Magazine Website for a snowman cake. I LOVED the idea, and I thought it looked easy enough to do with my 3- and 5-year-old boys. I didn't have round cake pans, but I asked Mom and she did have two that I could borrow. They were the same size, whereas the original recipe suggested a smaller and larger one, but I figured this was good enough. I was right! :) I printed off just the picture of their snowman cake, and then I went searching for a different cake recipe that would use a cake mix. Since the snowman calls for coconut shavings for snow, I thought pineapple cake sounded good. I found a good one!

The recipe was: One yellow cake mix, three eggs, one stick of butter and one can of crushed pineapple with the juice. First, you mix the eggs and butter (softened to room temperature). Then you add the cake mix and pineapple (no oil like the box calls for). I poured this mixture into my cake pans and baked at 350 according to the time on the box for two 9" round pans. Here are my boys in their chef outfits, hands washed and ready to help!

I cracked the eggs and let Joshua put them into the bowl where Caleb had already dumped the butter.

 

Then I let Caleb mix  the butter and eggs together. They LOVE to hold the mixer.

Then I let Caleb dump the cake mix and pineapple into the bowl.

Afterward Joshua helped me finish mixing the cake together. It baked while the boys & I played a game of Trouble.

Once the cakes had finished baking and a toothpick inserted came out clean, I set the timer for 10 minutes. Then I covered a cookie sheet with aluminum foil and used a knife to loosen the edges of the cake and flipped them next to each other onto the foil. There, I let them cool completely while the boys napped and I exercised. When it was time, I iced both cakes with butter cream icing (store bought, but I saw a million recipes online for icing as well). Then, the boys helped me sprinkle coconut on both round cakes to resemble snow. There's no wrong way to do this, and the excess that lands on the cookie sheet just makes it look more real.

The boys opened the circle candies and chose which colors to use for the buttons. Shawn helped me figure out how to make a scarf, for which we used Twizzlers and a marshmallow "pin." Joshua put the mouth on (simple candy rope stuff), and Caleb helped put on the orange gum drop nose. The Bean put on the chocolate wafer eyes. I added the Twizzler arms.

Caleb was SO excited about our little snowman creation and called him "Frosty."

Frosty had a magic black hat, and while I didn't have a top hat to use, I got out a disposable black plastic bowl. I cut it in half and used it for his hat. Shawn said he thought the cake looked better with his hat. :) What do you think?

I loved the idea, and the boys were excited that the weather report was calling for snow the following night!

We each had a slice for snack Thursday evening, and the boys don't really like sweets all that much so they didn't even finish theirs. Knowing approximately how many calories were in this cake (the original recipe said you could add a half cup chopped pecans, which I opted not to since I didn't have any), I knew we had to give it away. Shawn doesn't like coconut, but he still seemed to like the cake okay. I thought it was awesome! The cake was moist, and the butter cream icing was scrumptious. I knew I could eat it all if we didn't get it out of our house. So, I called Mamaw to see if she'd like some, and I gave her the rest of the cake we hadn't eaten that night.

My friend Karisten came over the following day for a play date, and I gave her half of the other cake circle, a slice of which she ate at our house and the rest she took with her to share with her fam while they were eating lunch together. That left us with one more slice for Shawn & me to eat that night after supper. I had taken all our decorations off and thrown them away. It was a fun craft to make with the boys. They enjoy baking and decorating, and I love new ideas of things we can do together. :) This one was easy!