April 18, 2011

Let's see. Where do I begin?

First of all, if you're new here on BigSisLilSis, I should probably start by saying that I'm not a baker; and for those of you that have been reading for a while, I know that you've heard me say it over, and over, and over again. (But, it's true.)

Secondly, I didn't purposely set out to make my own birthday cake, but it just worked out that way. Yep. Today is my birthday and it's kind of a scary number for me so I won't mention how many candles should be on my cake. My hubby is really good about buying me wonderful birthday cakes from a local French Bakery, but I told him not to buy me one this year since I was making my first Easter Bunny Cake and we could just consider it my birthday cake.

One more thing before we get to the cake. I've always loved Duff and his show, Ace of Cakes and I love watching the cake decorating contests on Food Network, but after attempting this Easter Bunny Cake, I have a new-found respect and admiration for all cake decorators.

Here's a little conversation that happened when HayHay, my 17 yr old son, walked in after school on Friday after I had just finished my cake.

Me: “HayHay, did you see my Easter Bunny Cake?”

Hay: “No.”

Me: “Will you please look at it and tell me what you think? I'm really disappointed because I made it just like the photo from the recipe and she's not very cute.”

(This is what Floppy looked like when he first saw her.)

Hay: “I think it looks pretty good considering you're not a baker.”

(I think he really did intend for that to be a compliment.)

So, let's back up and start with the construction of the cake. I used this Betty Crocker Easter Bunny Cake recipe and to begin, bake the cake according to directions for the 8″ or 9″ round pans and let the cake cool.

Cut one of the cake layers in half.

Put halves together with frosting to form body. Place cake upright on plate or tray. Cut out a notch about one-third of the way up on one end of body to form head.

Attach half of cutout piece to end of cake with a toothpick to form tail.

I didn't want the ears made of construction paper, so I decided to cut the edges off of the other cake layer to form the ears.

(The crack down the middle of the cake was an accident. It happened when I took the cake off the parchment paper. I didn't even consider that the warm cake would stick to the parchment paper. DUH! A real baker would know not to do that. A real baker would have a cooling rack.)

I forgot to take a photo, but for the ears, I just took the two edges that weren't broken and put them together and then cut that piece in half to form the two ears.

Now, time to frost the cake.

Betty Crocker recommends using the Carrot Cake for this Easter Bunny Cake, but even though carrot cake seems Easter-ish, I would not suggest it at all. IF, and that's a BIG IF, I ever made this cake again, I would use a white cake. Even though the recipe says that if you put the cut pieces of the cake in the freezer for an hour before frosting, you won't have a problem with crumbs, that wasn't the case for me. With the carrot cake and the white icing, any time crumbs got in the icing, it was extremely obvious, and a big mess to fix, so why not use a white cake so if crumbs did get in the icing, you couldn't see them?

Next, sprinkle with coconut.

Is it starting to look like a bunny yet?

Next, I attached the ears with toothpicks.

Then, just color some coconut green, sprinkle on the platter and scatter some jelly beans. I also colored some coconut pink for the inside of the ears. Just use jelly beans for the eyes and nose and your done.

Cute, huh? Not so much.

I'm sure this cake would be fine for a kid's birthday party or Easter gathering, but I was disappointed. I didn't think it was cute at all and much smaller than what I expected.

Since I wasn't happy with Floppy's face, I decided to sleep on it and play around with it a little bit more yesterday. I never have liked sticking to any original recipe, so I don't know why I thought I had to when it came to decorating Floppy's face.

First, I decided to try pink eyes instead of the black.

That's a little bit cuter, but how about some whiskers?

I don't know. How about adding a mouth?

Not. That looks even more goofy!

Why don't we just change the face completely?

I found this little marshmallow Easter Bunny while at the drug store the other day and decided to try using it's face on my Easter Bunny Cake.

Now the face is definitely too small or maybe the ears are just too big.

Let's try the ears from the marshmallow bunny.

That's a little better, don't ya think?

Meet Floppy, the flop.

Not exactly what I had planned on, but I guess it'll have to do. I think Floppy was my first and last Easter Bunny Cake.

I'm glad my hubby had a Plan B for my birthday cake.

He surprised me with this gorgeous cake!

~LilSis