What to make when you’ve been snowed in for days? Snow cake, of course! When I proposed baking a cake the boy first suggested chocolate. I talked him into a “snow” cake instead, a.k.a. coconut.

We used Ina Garten’s coconut cake recipe, though I used unsweetened coconut instead of the sweetened she calls for. Really, this cake is sweet enough. It’s a dense cake, but flavorful and stays moist for several days, which is important when you’re making a cake for just three of you. (Though we did take some to share on a snow-day playdate.)

Instead of Ina’s cream cheese frosting, I used Smitten Kitchen’s Swiss meringue buttercream.

This is the frosting I used on the boy’s 3rd birthday cake this past summer, and it was an all around favorite — not sickly sweet, easy to make, and it held up on a humid August day — what more could you ask for? It does use quite a lot of butter … fortunately I stocked up before the blizzard, but we still needed to restock when the husband went out for a between-storm grocery run.

After frosting, we took a snowflake stencil, cut out of wax paper, and laid it gently over the top. We sprinkled a heavy layer of dried coconut (unsweetened, again) over the openings, then removed the stencil to reveal our snowflake. I had tried to talk the boy into dying the frosting light blue so the snowflake would show up better, but he insisted that a snow cake had to be white. (Duh.) I think he was right though, as it turned out just lovely. Don’t you think?

(You could easily adapt this to make a Valentine’s cake by tinting the coconut pink and making a heart shape on top.)

You can’t have cake without ice cream, and I’d had snow cream on the mind ever since reading this article in the Washington Post. When I was a kid, the only thing we ever made with snow was orange juice-topped sno cones, not particularly creative. I remember wanting to make maple syrup candy, a la Little House on the Prairie, but I don’t think we ever did. So naturally I took advantage of the 30-some inches of fluffy white snow in our backyard to make maple snow cream — delicious and equally enchanting to kids and parents alike. (Well, this parent at least!)

Recipe: Maple Snow Cream

Ingredients:

• 1 bowl full of clean, white snow
• 1 cup cream
• 1/4 cup maple syrup

Instructions: Heat cream in a small sauce pan over low heat. When warm, whisk in the maple syrup. Remove from heat and let cool. Gather snow. Pour cooled maple cream over snow, stirring to combine and break up any chunks that form. Enjoy immediately! Makes 4 servings.

What are you baking for – or with — your Valentine? It turns out I’m not the only one with home-baked Valentines on the mind — Kelsey of The Naptime Chef and Jennifer of Savor the Thyme are hosting a “Food is Love” challenge. Hop over to either of their blogs for the details; enter by Tuesday, February 16, and you could win a prize from Scharffen Berger chocolates. Happy Valentine’s Day to you & your foodie families!

Feliz dia de Reyes! I had a friend in high school whose family was British (or at least had spent time living in the U.K., I just remember her lovely accent) and when her family invited mine over for Twelfth Night it was the first I had ever heard of extending Christmastide beyond Christmas day. I had always hated how anti-climatic it was to have all the build up of shopping, cooking and decorating only to be over and done in one short day. My husband is half Puerto Rican, so we have adopted Three Kings’ Day (Los Reyes, Jan. 6) – even if he is Jewish – as our own family holiday. In the past, I’ve cooked a more traditional roast pork and served coquito, and making a Kings cake has been on my “must do” list for a while. Unfortunately, this year my twelve days of baking plans sizzled out early, thanks to a killer cold that I’ve had since Boxing Day. However, the husband came up with the idea of breaking the news to the toddler about our soon-to-depart Christmas tree by pairing it with one last Los Reyes gift. Bribery is, after all, the key to a two-year-old’s heart. Since it is a school/work day, and a rainy, gloomy one at that, we’ll be keeping our dinner simple with some light tapas.

Here are some variations on Kings Cake from around the world:

• A Spanish Magic Kings Cake
• A French Gallete des Rois
• A Mexican Rosca de Reyes
• And of course the New Orleans’ version

Did you make anything to celebrate?

I may have mentioned before that peaches are my favorite summer fruit. There’s nothing better than a ripe, juicy, fresh-picked peach. (As you can see from the photo, the toddler shares my addiction.) Alas, the amazing peaches we picked in Oregon were left behind for my sister and niece to enjoy, so I’ve been left relying on my favorite market vendors. Last week, I missed out entirely at the Wednesday Upper King Street Market, where Dan from D&S sold out early. I barely made it to McLean’s Friday market before closing, and struck out again at Reid’s Orchard, though I did get a bottle of their peach nectar. Thankfully, I found a few left at Westmoreland and was finally able to make my peach swirl ice cream. While peach ice cream and cobblers (and salsa and sangria) are great, they don’t last particularly long. I have some sliced peaches in the freezer for later use, but here’s another recipe that freezes well (for a month or so) and will help you hold onto your peaches a little longer, without resorting to canning. The buckwheat flour adds a whole grain to offset some of the unhealthiness of traditional pound cake – making this perfectly acceptable as a breakfast bread. Of course, you can use whole wheat flour instead or use white flour entirely if you prefer.

Recipe: Amaretto Peach Pound Cake

Ingredients:

• 2 c peaches, finely chopped
• 1 T amaretto liquer, optional
• 1 c butter, softened
• 4 eggs
• 2 c sugar
• 1 c buckwheat flour
• 2 c unbleached flour
• 1 t vanilla extract
• 1/2 t almond extract
• 2 t baking powder
• 1/2 t salt

Instructions: Toss peaches with amaretto and let stand while preparing cake batter. Preheat over to 350 degrees and grease 2 loaf pans. Combine butter, eggs, sugar, vanilla and almond extract until smooth. Combine dry ingredients and blend into butter mixture. Fold in peaches and pour batter in loaf pans. Bake for 50 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean. Enjoy!

Farms of Origin: This was made with my local Wye Mills buckwheat flour, Harris peaches, South Mountain butter.