Easter Cake - Bunnies and Carrots

I haven't made a "fancy" cake in years!  My friend Mallory and I took 4 Wilton cake courses at Michael's a few years ago and loved it SO much!  I hadn't used my tools in forever and I forgot how many cool and interesting things I have in my cake supplies! #closetspace

A few weeks ago I decided it was time to make another cake.  The holidays always make a good excuse to bake and decorate a cake because there are SO many designs and ideas online.  Plus, if you're going to make such a large cake, you need lots of people to help you eat it!

I started with a spice cake.  I wanted something that tasted similar to carrot cake but I much prefer the Duncan Hines brand of spice cake.  Honestly, I like to use the boxed cake mix when I make "fancy cakes".  I'm sure I could make something tasty "from scratch," but these projects involve so much effort, a box cake just makes it slightly easier.

These are various pictures of the baking process.  I used two 10 inch diameter pans so I needed at least 2 full boxes of cake mix.
Left Top and Bottom: I used my special cake knife to cut one layer into two.  This knife is SO nice because you can set the height wherever you need it!
Middle Right: These are nifty cake pan sleeves.  One side is metallic fabric and the other side is strong absorbent cotton.  The idea is to saturate the sleeves with water and then pin them around each cake pan while the cake bakes.  It results in a much more flat surface cake when you use these sleeves!  I love them!

These are pictures from the frosting steps!  I made homemade vanilla butter cream and piped it in between each layer and around the whole cake.  
Top Left: I like to pipe the frosting all over the cake because it makes it easier to evenly spread the frosting.  It doesn't have to be pretty, just good surface coverage.
Bottom Left: One important tip is to use a cardboard circle the exact size of your cake or larger.  I used a 10 inch diameter circle and frosted it before I placed a layer on it.  This helps to give the cake some stability and almost "glues" it together.


Fondant can be difficult and finicky.  Fondant is hard to make from scratch and it's very pricey if you buy it in the stores.  I once made a homemade marshmallow fondant that tasted far better than store bought fondant but, the trade off was that it was more difficult to work with.  Fondant dries out very easily too so you have to use suran wrap every step of the way to keep the fondant fresh.
Top Left: This is the box of fondant I decided to use.  I usually wait till it goes on sale or use a 40% off coupon at Michael's.
Top Left: This is the cake before I trimmed up the fondant.
Bottom Left and Middle: The fondant blades of grass were VERY easy to make!  I needed lots of blades (50+).
Bottom Right: This was the beginning of my bunny's rear-end.  I was using a very helpful fondant pad which helps measure the diameter of a circle once rolled out.

At this point, I usually get exhausted.  Each step (baking, making frosting, cutting and assembling, and rolling fondant) really takes it out of me.  The BEST part is the decorating details.
Top Left: I started attaching each blade of grass to the outside edge of the cake.  This was easy with a fondant brush and clear water.  Some people like to mix vanilla extract into the water but I prefer to keep it simple.
Top Left: These were the bunny feet in process! I made them almost cartoon like (very thick feet) because I wanted them to be strong against a car ride and the heat of the lake.
Bottom: These are carrot pictures in process.  The carrots were surprisingly easy!  I just used a steak knife to make the grooves on the side of each carrot!

At this point, the cake was ready to go to the lake.  I wanted it to be as close to finished as possible so that all I had to do was assemble the final confectionery decorations at the lake.

And finally, the finished product!
Top Left: The bunny feet and details of the carrots!
Bottom Left: This is a close up of the bunny rear-end.  I wanted it to look like the bunny had stuck it's head in "dirt" and dug up these carrots.
Right: This is the finished product!  I'm so thrilled with how the cake turned out!  Jordan helped me each step of the way and was such a good sport about the mess.  Seriously...the kitchen was crazy!  And I love this cake stand!  This was a birthday gift from Jordan a few years back.

Happy baking!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Cheese it Up

Image
Sometimes I feel like Jordan and I live for the weekends.  We are very blessed to have each other, jobs that we both enjoy, an adorable pup, and a pretty house, so we definitely  enjoy the week days.  It's just that the weekends are when the action happens!  I don't know if we rest more during the week or the weekends! Last weekend was no exception.  We managed to strike the right balance of being productive while still having some leisure time.  Those are my favorite kind of weekends because that's a really tough balance to get! We recently planted some new flowers around our house which was a big chore.  I always get the spring bug this time of year (not the sickness).  I can't help it!  I don't have any sort of green thumb so I suppose this spring tradition will continue for years to come.  In the short time that we've had these pretty flowers, we've spent a lot more time outside.  The nice weather helps too!   Here's the run down of our new pl
Read more

July 4th with Family

Image
Happy July 4th...or 14th.  It's taken me a while to get around to sharing pictures from our Independence Day celebration but I've got 30+ pictures of family food and fun to share! There is no other holiday quite like the 4th of July in America!  Everyone takes off work to enjoy delicious food (and cold drinks), BBQ, and the faint smell of explosives in the air --- those bombs bursting in air! This year was even sweeter than previous years because my brother, Andy, and his family flew to Texas for a long visit!  I was so thrilled to see them all! Top Left: I do love a little flare!  I got a pedicure before the holiday and decided to go with a patriotic theme.  The design looks almost like a Wonder Woman theme which is equally awesome. Top Right: My brother, Scott, with his pup Lucy.  She is laser focused on the lake smells in this picture. Bottom Left: Me, my niece, Kenley, and Lucy!  Lucy sure has grown so much from when she was a puppy (see her Chri
Read more

Doodles and Drawings

Image
I've continued to have fun with my Tombow calligraphy markers that I talked about on my Tombow Watercolor post.  Pinterest is rich with unique and interesting art!  I've found that it's extremely relaxing to sit down and doodle with my markers while sipping quality wine and listening to some music.  It makes for a messy kitchen table but I feel very chill and in my own element! The only new piece of art I have to share is this "hustle" poster I made for a friend.  I began by playing with the texture of watercolor paper (verses usually using "media" paper).  The water and markers react completely different depending on the surface and paper.  I ended up with this woodland-ish doodle. Leaves are probably not the most interesting focus, but I had fun playing with the different shades of greens and browns along with the various textures of leaves.  I have so many shades of markers so it was a great opportunity to use them all!  For fun, I even
Read more