Preheat oven to 325°F.

Grease and flour your snowman cake with a good vegetable shortening and a fine flour like Wondra. Tap out any excess flour.

Sift together the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, nutmeg and salt.

In a small bowl, combine the milk and vanilla.

Using a flat beater, in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted, beat the butter on medium speed until creamy and smooth, about 1 to 2 minutes. Add your granulated and brown sugar and continue beating until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Stop occasionally to scrape down the sides of the bowl.

Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

Reduce the speed of your mixture to a lower setting, and add the flour and milk mixtures, alternating the two, beginning and ending with the flour.

As you're adding in the flour and milk, beat each addition just until it's mixed in, stopping as needed to scrape down the sides of the bowl.

Spoon the batter into your snowman pan, dividing it evenly between the two halves and spreading a little extra into the head area of the pan.

Tap the pan onto a work surface a few time to ensure the batter gets down into all the little indentions of the pan and to release any little air bubbles in the batter.

Bake until the center of the cake springs back when touched and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, 55 to 60 minutes. Mine actually took around 65 minutes.

Transfer pan to a wire rack and let the cake cool upright in the pan for 15 minutes.

Tap the pan gently on a work surface to loosen the cake.

This would be a great time to slice off any cake sticking up above the pan with a serrated knife since the back of your snowman will need to be flat for assembling.

Set a cooling rack over the top of the cake and invert the pan onto the rack. Your cake should come out easily.

Let the cake cool completely, 3 to 4 hours, before assembling and decorating.