Make This Easter Bunny Cake and Watch People Lose Their Minds Over It
We were swooning over its cuteness ... until we started crying laughing.
There are times in life when you need to follow your passion, no matter what anybody else might think. Maybe that means quitting your job to open a floating pizzeria in the Caribbean or turning Oreos into Harry Potter-inspired art; other times, it's making a classic (albeit twee ... and okay, maybe a little cheesy) Easter bunny cake.
You can't help but smile when you see this classic, coconut-covered cake on the table, and if it doesn't turn out the way you expected, even better. As you'll see by the end of this story, a cake that makes you cry laughing—and still tastes delicious—is even better than a Martha Stewart-worthy masterpiece.
We're breaking down the entire process of making a bunny cake, step-by-step, so you can do it too. May it bring you as many tears of joy as it did us.
Bake two 9-inch round cakes.
You can use a cake mix, or try this classic recipe. Give the cakes time to cool, then pull one aside and cut it in half. Frost one half along the flat side, using vanilla frosting (store-bought or your favorite recipe, like this one).
Create the bunny's body.
Move the cake halves to whatever you're serving this masterpiece on (a platter, Lazy Susan, old hubcap you found on the side of the road) and press them together, forming a semi-circle. CONGRATULATIONS, you've made the bunny's body!
Make the bunny's tail.
Chop off the back end of the semi-circle. That little nubbin will become the tail of the bunny. Add some frosting to it and attach it to the opposite end of the bunny's body (AKA the end that's still rounded).
Attach the bunny's tail.
This is what the tail looks like once it's attached. It may not look like much just yet, but it will. Pinky promise.
Make the bunny's face.
Grab the second 9-inch chocolate cake and place a 1-cup measuring cup on top of it, near the edge. Use a knife to carve out a circle. You just made the rabbit's head. Pretty easy, right?
Frost its face on.
Put a little vanilla frosting on the bottom of the bunny's face and attach it to the flat end of the bunny body. Boom! Now you've got a ... brown blob that looks vaguely like a slug. Or a lopsided attempt at a Princess Leia wig made out of cake. Stick with us.
Go back to that second cake.
You know that cake with a sad, measuring-cup-sized hole in it? It's going to form the bunny's legs and ears. First, the legs: Cut the edges of the cake off, just shy of either side of the hole.
Carve out the ears.
Using that remaining block of cake, cut out an ear shape. You can use the one you just cut out as a stencil for the second ear—just stick the cut-out piece of cake on top of the remaining cake, and trace it with a knife. Done and done.
Add the legs.
Using frosting as glue, spread a thin layer on the flat side of either semi-circle "leg," and press it on either side of the bunny's body. You may want to trim the legs a little, so they're not as long as the rest of the rabbit.
Get everything in place.
See? It's starting to look like ... a second grader's misguided attempt at a soapbox derby car? Hang in there.
Frost it up.
Now that you have a rough—very rough—sense of the bunny's shape, use a small knife to carve off the top half of the face, just to give it a little more dimension. (Plus, it makes the eyes stick easier.)
Then, cover that naked bunny in frosting.
Give it some support.
Stick a skewer in the bunny's head to support each ear. If you're too freaked out to build your own ears—or you just realized you don't have skewers or toothpicks handy—you could always make the ears out of paper. Some may say it's a classier solution; we're too committed to give up now. (Plus, more cake is more cake, right?)
Bring on the ears.
Slowly slide each cake ear down the skewer. If it feels wobbly, try adding a second skewer. (And please, please, please remember to take those skewers out before serving. Nobody wants to remember your dessert as having a distinct crunch and woodsiness. Or go to the hospital afterward.)
Go coconuts!
Make it rain sweetened flaked coconut until that bunny is covered. You may have to gently pat it on the sides of the cake, just to get it to stick.
Go easy on the ears.
Pat the coconut gently around the ears and face; you don't want those falling off when you're THIS close to the big reveal.
Give that bunny some personality.
How you decorate the cake is entirely up to you. M&Ms and jelly beans make for great eyes and noses; mini peppermint patties, as we learned, give the bunny a "dead in the eyes" look, our photographer noted. An Easter Pull-Apart Twizzler was used for the mouth; you could also pipe on your own with chocolate or black icing.
Easter grass, coconut flakes dyed green with food coloring, or chopped Easter Grass Twizzlers (which we used) can hide any sloppy frosting along the edges—and give the rabbit that whole nestled-on-the-lawn look.
But maybe not too much personality.
If a smiling, peppy bunny is a little too twee for your tastes, feel free to give him some attitude.
Mayday! Mayday!
You've gone too far. TOO FAR. Children are crying, dogs are whimpering—this cake is ready to star in a campy horror film, like the Easter version of ThanksKilling.
Wait for people to devour it.
The one perk to a terrifying bunny cake: People will have absolutely no problem tearing into it. Though it may haunt their dreams for weeks afterward.
But really, there's no shame in going full cutesy.
How can you resist that little face?!
Pin this image so you can make this year after year (and maybe start a new family tradition: See just how absurd of a face you can give the bunny).
