Every Easter, for as long as I can remember, we’ve made a bunny cake. When I was little, Mom made it with my sister and me. One year we even had four generations working on it. Now, my oldest remembers and asks for it each Easter.
The tradition isn’t in the flavor of the cake or a traditional recipe; rather, it’s all in the shape and the decorating. This year I used one of my favorite cake and icing recipes (chocolate Goofy Cake and peanut butter icing) to make it, though, and we’ll definitely be making it this way again.
After baking and cooling the cake in two round pans (recipes to follow), place one on the center of your board and ice. Pretend that the other is a baseball and cut where the seams would be. The outside pieces become the ears, and the center is the bunny’s bowtie.
Then, let the decorating begin! We like to choose the bunny’s fur color – usually white or brown – and then ice the center of his ears pink. We choose a color for the tie, and after all of the icing is finished, it’s time to decorate.
Like making a candy house, the best part is being creative with the candy that you have on hand. This year, we sliced a marshmallow in half and used that for the base of the eyes. A brown M&M became the pupils, a pink jellybean egg the nose, and a large, bent Tootsie Roll his mouth.
Our favorite part, though, his making the bowtie. We always make a polka-dotted tie with M&Ms. (My Little Man usually finds it necessary to push each candy into the icing with his finger, so that then he must lick it off after each and every one.) You could do it another way, I suppose, but this is just fun!
After Easter lunch, there’s always a fierce debate about who gets to eat the ever-popular bowtie, who gets the eyeballs, etc. But really – with a chocolate and peanut butter cake, there’s never a bad piece!
