Birthday? Bake a Snowball Cake!

Making of Sarah's Birthday cake 2011 5.JPG

For my youngest daughters 20th birthday she requested a snowball cake. You know the kind I'm talking about. Hostess is famous for them.

It seems she had seen a picture of one on one of the crafting sites she frequents and figured it wouldn't hurt to ask. Well she asked and I made it. My girls know that if there is a way to do it and it is important to them then I will certainly try my best, so the cake was made. It wasn't easy and sometimes it wasn't pretty but I managed to pull it together. She is a fan, at 20 years old!, of My Little Pony. So a trip to Wal-Mart to buy pony decorations completed the cake.

Items Needed for This Cake Project

Cake mix (Chocolate devils food cake works well but let’s not split hairs any cake is good.)
A medium size metal or glass bowl for baking (Try not to make a special purchase. Many people have metal mixing pans and these work great.)
A round 8 inch cake pan (Again, let’s not be too particular. If all you have is a 9-inch pan then go with that. It just entails a little more trimming.)
Fluffy White frosting- (This is made by Betty Crocker and works much better than marshmallow fluff) Another name for this is seven minute icing.
Marshmallow Fluff
Coconut- I use Bakers angel flake coconut/sweetened
Food Color
Decorations-These are optional
Air Brush-Also optional as coconut can be colored before putting on cake by simply putting it in a ziploc bag with a few drops of pink food color and shaken until all flakes are colored.
Ziploc bag

Let's Begin

Bake the cakes according to directions on the box and be forewarned that the cake in a bowl will take forever to bake. You just have to watch it and test it occasionally to know when it is done. It will take over an hour! After cakes are baked let cool. Once cooled the cake can be assembled.

First you must take the round cake and place over the bottom layer which is the 8-in round and trim off the excess cake making it all line up so that when cake is assembled and iced it looks like one cake.

After trimming, remove the top cake and on the bottom cake make a 1/2 inch recess/well in it at about 1 inch from the edge. This recess will then be filled with marshmallow fluff.

Place the top cake back upon the bottom cake and if desired it may be secured with skewers. I personally didn’t use any on my cake as this was my first attempt at it and you are benefiting from my mistakes.

At this point you simply frost the cake with Betty Crockers Homestyle Fluffy White frosting or the seven minute icing. I did find that this frosting worked well and was more like the true snowball cake in taste and texture.

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After frosting the cake you need to apply the coconut. Now if you colored your coconut in the ziploc bag, (this is done by just adding coconut to the bag and a few drops of pink food color and shaking it until all the coconut is the desired color), you just take handfuls of it and press into the cake until the cake is coated. If you are using the airbrush then apply the uncolored coconut the same way and then add your color to the sprayer and have fun! I know I did.

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Once cake is completed to this point you just need to add the decorations whatever they may be! Or none!

WARNING: This cake should NOT be made the day before and the frosting and gravity do not have a nice relationship. This cake should be assembled as close to time to eating it as is feasible.