I Made a Bunny Cake!

When my daughter was little I made a bunny cake almost every Easter. I haven't make one for her son yet and he is five!  Well, the drought is over - this is the year for a bunny cake! Quite appropriate as we are experiencing a lot of storms and rain here in Northwest Arkansas!

The first thing necessary to make a bunny cake is to make two round cakes. They should be same size even though they are not going to be stacked. I use a nice white cake as cut edges will be frosted and the crumbs don't show as badly as they would if I used a chocolate cake. This year I used a cake mix but a scratch cake would work too. I also used two cans of ready-made frosting.

Once the cakes are cooked and cooled. Remove them from the pans. Place one on a rigid, flat surface. I used a piece of corrogated cardboard covered with aluminum foil. Put the other one on a cutting board and cut the two ears as shown in the picture below. The middle section will become the bunny's bow tie.

I cut paper shaped to mask areas that I want to keep clean during the initial frosting process - the center of the ears, the eyes and nose.

The next step is to frost the face and ears with white frosting. Arrange the pieces as shown below. Just frost over the paper masks. Sprinkle shredded coconut over the cake to simulate fur.

The paper masks are removed in this photo. Place some frosting in a small bowl and use food color to tint it pink. Fill in the center of the ears and the nose. I tinted frosting blue for the eyes and the knot of the tie. I thought a yellow bow tie would be appropriate for my bunny cake. I used a teaspoon and carefully placed the colored frosting in the areas that were masked by the paper shapes. I mixed the a small about of each of the colored frostings together and added some more blue and red in an attempt to get gray for his mouth. It is really a bit on the purple side!  I put it into a sandwich bag and cut a small hole in the corner and piped his mouth.

Using candy to decorate the bunny works well too. I have also tinted coconut green and placed it around the cake to simulate grass. Just put some coconut loosely in a plastic bag and add a few drops of green food color and shake!

I can't wait to see the reaction of the little one when he sees his first bunny cake in the morning!