Capture snow day sales

1. Begin the color scheme with the cake itself by marbling pink food coloring into your 8-in. white cake rounds before baking. Then, use lime green icing to fill between the two layers.

2. Ice the stacked cake with white icing and coat the sides with pink crystallized sugar. Place on a cake board finished with lime green ribbon.

3. Place wooden dowels in the top of the cake to form the support for the evergreen trees and the snowwoman. Trim them to make the trees, made from sugar ice cream cones, different heights. If necessary, trim the bottoms of the ice cream cones.

4. Use leaf tip No. 352 to pipe tree branches on the ice cream cones. Start at the bottom of the cones and work your way towards the top, holding the cone with a dowel. Leave the top bare of branches until after you place the cone on the cake, then finish piping the top of the tree.

5. Roll three different sized balls out of white fondant, and place on a dowel to create the snowwoman. Cover the top of the cake with white sanding sugar to mimic snow.

6. Use tweezers to place multi-colored dragees on the trees for ornaments.

7. Cover the cake board with white sanding sugar and place white Sixlets or large white dragees on top of the cake and around the cake board.

8. Twist three pieces of white floral wire into two stick arms for the snowwoman. Use an indentation tool to mark the eyes, nose, mouth and buttons.

9. Place blue dragees for the snowwoman’s eyes, and use white dragees for the mouth. Create buttons using green dragees. Craft a carrot nose out of orange fondant, and shape a pink hair ribbon out of pink fondant.

10. For coordinating cupcakes, ice the cupcakes with white icing and roll them in pink crystallized sugar to create a border.

11. Insert the trees into the tops of the cupcakes. Place two trees on some of them for variety.

12. Insert the trees into the tops of the cupcakes. Place two trees on some of them for variety.

13. Another corresponding cupcake idea is to pipe wreaths. Use leaf tip No. 352 to border the edge of the cupcakes with evergreen boughs.

14. Form pink bows that match the one on the snowwoman out of fondant and place at the bottom of each wreath. Add multi-colored dragees as ornaments.

Ashley Vicos Like many girls of her generation, Ashley Vicos’ love of baking began at age 5 with an Easy-Bake Oven. That love has become her career as she now owns Atlanta-based Sweet Ashley’s, a commercially licensed cake studio, where she creates custom cakes and teaches cake decorating classes. Vicos stars in her own show–Have Cake, Will Travel–airing on the Food Network, and has competed in several televised decorating challenges.