Frosty's Going Down...

Ok, so originally my plan had been to make Tiramisu from scratch for the first time. But then... well, it's all bakerella's fault. She put the cutest snowmen on her website (http://www.bakerella.com/snowman-cake-pops/) and then on top of that I see a whole mess of cute snowman cupcakes and treats in Phyllis Hoffman's Celebrate Magazine. Not to mention the fact that St. Louis had just been covered in snow. It's obvious that some sort of divine intervention was taking place; I was meant to make cute snowpeople and save the tiramisu for next week.

So, because I couldn't decide between the cake pops on bakerella's site or the cupcakes in Celebrate Magazine, I made both.

Frosty's Melting Cupcakes

The cupcakes were super yummy and really easy to make (mostly because I used a cake mix.)

Supplies:

- Dark Chocolate Cake Mix

- Chocolate Chunks

- Cinnamon

- Melted white chocolate

- Pre-Rolled Ready to Use Fondant

- Lindt White Chocolate Balls

- Orange Rainbow Chip Sprinkles

- Black Confetti Sprinkles

Make the cupcakes according to the back of the box. Before baking I added a bag of chocolate chunks and 1 tsp of cinnamon to the mix so they wouldn't be so plain. While they're baking, go ahead and roll out the fondant and use a 4 inch round cookie cutter to cut out circles.

Once the cupcakes have cooled, place an unwrapped lindt chocolate on top of the cupake and then one of your fondant circles on top of that. Place the cupcake in the microwave for 10-20 seconds until the fondant takes on a melted look.

When the fondant has cooled, use the melted white chocolate to "glue" the confetti sprinkles and orange nose onto your cupcake. Done and done. I only made a couple cute cupcakes because I really don't like the taste of fondant. I covered the rest with a chocolate ganache topping (1/2 cup whipping cream and 4 ounces chocolate chips - bring whipping cream to a boil and then remove from heat, add chips wait a few minutes then stir til smooth. Wait about 15 minutes before you start icing).

SnowPeople Cake Balls (ha.)

Supplies:

- Cake Balls (you can find the recipe here: http://www.bakerella.com/red-velvet-cake-balls/)

- I used Funfetti cake mix and vanilla icing for this instead of red velvet and cream cheese.

- White Candy Melts

- Regular Oreos (bottom of top hat)

- Mini Oreos (top of top hat)

- Orange Rainbow Sprinkles (nose)

- Black Confetti Sprinkles (eyes and buttons)

- Black non-pareils

- Toothpicks

- Pretzel Sticks

After making the cake balls, you dip them in the white candy melts and leave them on wax paper to dry. (you can stack them with toothpicks at this stage or wait until they're dry - either way works)

Once they're dry you can start with the fun decorating part. Use the candy melts as glue to stick all of the snowman pieces on (you'll have to hold the pretzel arms on for awhile, it's not as much fun as the rest of it).

This guy is my favorite...

Maybe that's mean, but he looks so sad that he lost his head.

Next Week: Tiramisu (For real this time...probably)