Snowman Cupcakes

1. Trim the dry top off 12 of the cupcakes and crumble the soft cake interiors into a bowl. Add about 5 ounces of vanilla icing and mix well. Add more frosting if needed to bring the mixture together into a ball so that it can be easily shaped. Cover bowl and chill cake mixture in the fridge for 20 minutes.

2. Frost remaining 12 cupcakes with a thin layer of white vanilla frosting.

3. Remove cake mixture and roll with wet hands into 2 different sized balls for the snowmen's torsos and heads, 12 bigger balls and 12 smaller balls. Stick a small ball on top of a big ball to make the snowman, using some frosting if the balls are not very sticky. Place snowmen onto frosted cupcakes.

4. Cut black licorice laces into small squares for the eyes and mouth using scissors and attach them with the tip of a knife to the head.

5. Mix white fondant with orange food coloring to turn it orange and make little carrot noses out of the orange fondant. Press into the snowman faces.

6. Attach 2 dark colored candy-coated milk chocolate pieces into the torso and cupcake as buttons. Attach 2 candy-coated milk chocolate pieces on either side of the head and connect them with a piece of black licorice for the earmuffs.

7. Cut red licorice laces into 2 1/2-inch long pieces and wrap around the snowman's neck as a scarf.

Cook's Notes:

If you are using freshly baked cupcakes, make sure that they are completely cooled before decorating.

You can use a recipe that calls for 24 cupcakes, then bake half the mixture as 12 cupcakes and bake the remaining mixture in a 8-inch round baking pan (at the same oven temperature, but for 25 to 30 minutes). Once cool, remove the cake from the pan and cut off the browned crust of the cake; then use this to make the snowman toppers.