Just so perfectly sweet… this Pastel Snowflake Cake would be gorgeous for any winter party!
I love pastel colored sweets all year round, and winter is no exception!
As much as I love traditional Christmas colors, there is something extra special about pastels.
Of course… you are welcome to use the general techniques and designs from this cake and have fun with any color theme you want!
This cake starts with my perfect chocolate cake recipe, delicious cream cheese frosting, and then is topped with buttercream frosted cookies… YUM!
This recipe was created in partnership with Challenge Dairy.
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The star of this cake is large snowflake cookies decorated with buttercream frosting.
As you know if you’ve spent any time on my site before… I most often decorate cookies with royal icing.
As much as I love the detail that can be achieved with royal icing… it’s hard to beat the flavor and soft texture of buttercream!
I made a batch of my favorite buttercream frosting (recipe below) and piped it onto the cookies using a small open star tip.
Scroll down to find the video included in this blog post that shows the whole decorating process for both the cake and cookies.
Of course when buttercream cookies are the star of the cake… then Challenge butter is the star ingredient!
My holiday baking always starts by stocking up on Challenge cream cheese and Challenge butter.
Challenge loves to let their fresh, high quality ingredients shine through in their products which means I can depend on a pure taste and superior results!
Challenge dairy products have no added flavors, dyes, or artificial preservatives…. just fresh and delicious ingredients that are the perfect foundation for successful recipes!
When I take the time to bake beautiful things… I only want the best!
This recipe includes three components…
CAKE – I used my favorite Chocolate Cake Recipe, but you could use my Perfect Vanilla Cake, or any cake of your choice.
FROSTING – I made two batches of frosting, one batch (using the recipe below) with cream cheese (see “notes” in recipe below). This is what I used to frost the cake itself. Then I made a second batch of frosting (using the recipe below, but without cream cheese) to frost the cookies. I colored the frosting using Americolor gels in soft pink, sky blue and purple.
COOKIES – I used my Perfect Sugar Cookie Recipe and made assorted sized snowflakes. To create the cookie “pops” as shown, insert cookie sticks (wooden or paper sticks) into the cookies before baking.
How to Make Perfect Buttercream Frosting
Perfect Buttercream Frosting
Ingredients
- 1 cup Challenge butter 2 sticks (salted, or unsalted)
- 1/4 teaspoon salt if using unsalted butter
- 4 cups powdered sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract best quality available
- 2-3 tablespoons heavy cream half and half or milk
Instructions
- In the bowl of an electric mixer, fitted with the whisk attachment, beat butter (on medium speed) until completely smooth (30 seconds to a minute). (If you are adding cream cheese, add it now, then beat until smooth)
- Add salt (if needed).
- One cup at time, add 2 cups of powdered sugar, beating after each addition.
- Add vanilla, and blend to combine.
- Add about 1 tablespoon of cream, and continue beating.
- Add the remaining 2 cups powdered sugar, one at a time.
- Add an additional 1-2 tablespoons cream until desired consistency is reached. For the icing you'll be coloring and piping onto the cookies, you want the icing to be nice and thick, so you may not need to add the additional cream.
- Continue to beat another minute or so. The frosting should now be smooth and fluffy.
Video
Notes
Nutrition
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Happy baking and decorating!
Disclosure – I created this recipe in partnership with Challenge Dairy. Partnering with brands I love allows me to provide you with high quality content at no cost to you. I only work with brands I use and love. All images, text and opinions are my own.
This cake is gorgeous!!! How do you do the color swipes at the bottom of the cake? Do you just use a frosting knife?
Were you able to see the video in this post? You’ll be able to see the technique (and tool used) in the video. I used a small rounded spatula, but you can use an offset icing spatula as well.
Hello – I’m trying to figure out if you are the blogger I ‘spoke’ to a bit ago. Did you make sugar free cookies for a granddaughter? Maybe her 2nd birthday? If yes, we ‘spoke’ about what to use for a sugar substitute in your regular recipe and you said originally you had used ‘XXX’, but if you were doing them now, you would use ‘XXX’. Was the new thing BOCASWEET sugar? Mine finally arrived and I am dying to try it….but trying to find out who told me about it. I can’t find the granddaughter post to look at your previous comment.
It ´s been years since I have started following you and baking all your perfect cakes or cookies .
I’m a French , and cant’ eat any conservatives .
So thank you so much for sharing all your recipes .
Merry Xmas
Jennifer
Awwwww! Sooooo cute! ! !
This is adorable and the colors are so pretty. Simple but very eloquent.
This cake is absolutely stunning! Perfect for winter birthdays!