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Don't let winter fly by without baking a gingerbread cake. This gorgeous cake was baked by Danielle from New Jersey (danibakes) just before Christmas.

She had been baking cookies all day, packaged them to send to relatives, and realized there was nothing sweet in the house for her family to enjoy. So Danielle pulled out a Hansel and Gretel pan as well as a Williams-Sonoma gingerbread cake mix. She doctored it up with cinnamon, half a box of instant vanilla pudding to make the cake more moist, and used milk as the liquid. After it was baked and turned out, she dusted the cake with a mix of brown sugar and powdered sugar to give it a look of fallen snow.

Clever Danielle says she has been baking since she was a child when she used to bake alongside her father - yes, her father! Danielle finds baking calming and the end results rewarding, and she is passing those skills on to her two daughters. It makes her husband happy, too. I don't have the Hansel and Gretel pan, but we do have the sand castle pan, and I think it would work with Danielle's idea. Plus, here's a yummy little secret - one of my favorite mixes to not doctor at all is gingerbread cake mix. Baked and served warm with a dollop of real whipped cream, people will think you've gone to great trouble with no trouble at all.