Join now or Sign in with your favorite social networking sites.
Are you looking for a sweet and fun Easter dessert the whole family can enjoy? Well, allow me to introduce you to the Gentleman Bunny! I recreate this childhood favorite using two 8-inch round cakes and frosting!
The Easter traditions of my childhood range from the mundane to the bizarre*. In the middle of the spectrum is this incredibly fun Easter Bunny cake that my Mom made on several occasions. Because my birthday falls in April and Easter coincides with it every few years I also got to have this cake for my birthday whenever I wanted it.
Two 8-inch round cakes transform into a Gentleman Bunny with a bow tie. His tender, fluffy fur is coconut and his twinkly eyes are jelly beans.
It takes time, concentration and a bit of patience to make this gentlemen look good. And when faced with a cake and frosting, I want to get down to the business of eating, not decorating!
That's not to say I didn't take shortcuts! I started with a boxed cake mix and a tub of pre-made frosting--those two steps saved me enough time that I could later dedicate to the details. By all accounts, if you have the time and energy, I encourage you to make both items from scratch.
Items needed:
1 box cake mix, any flavor or your favorite recipe from scratch, baked into two 8-inch cake pans and cooledFrosting, one canister or enough to cover one cake7 oz. bag shredded coconutPink food coloringEdible Easter grass or thin rope licorice
Remove the cake from the pans. Don't be too concerned if the cakes aren't of equal height. Cut two archs out of one of the cakes, one from the right side and one from the left.
You can use one arc as a template for the other by placing it on top of the cake and cutting against it.
The two pieces become the bunny's ears and the leftover piece becomes his bow tie.
Place the ears aside the other round cake and the bow tie under it, voila! You've got the start of a gentleman bunny!
By cutting one ear at an angle and placing it on top of the ear you can make it look like the ear is flopped over. Even a Gentleman Bunny could have a sassy floppy ear, right?
Place a thin crumb coating on all the cut sides and edges. You may need to water down the icing a little bit to make it easier. I also found it helpful to use a pastry bag to apply the frosting to the edges and then use an offset spatula to spread it. This step will make the final application of frosting go on better, and not let all the pesky crumbs mess up the Gentleman Bunny.
To add some depth to the ears, hollow out a small cavity. Don't forget to give them a light coat of frosting to seal in the crumbs!
Working in small sections, apply the frosting and then gently press the flaked coconut against the frosting. Do this for the ears and the head but not the bow tie, that part will come later.
Tint some coconut pink for the inner ears. Place a small amount of coconut in a plastic bag. Add a few drops of water and food coloring, close the bag and mash it up until all the coconut is tinted. Add more food coloring until you reach the desired shade.
To highlight the ears, use strands of the edible Easter basket grass to line the edges. You could also use tinted icing and a pastry bag with a small piping tip.
The Gentleman's bow tie is your chance to let your creativity shine. I tinted the frosting violet and used the edible grass to create a plaid pattern. You could use jelly beans to create polka dots or decorate it with colored sugars, it's really "anything goes!"
The last step if the Gentleman's face. Jelly beans are used for eyes, tinted coconut for the nose and edible grass for whiskers. When I was little my Mom used red licorice whips for the whiskers, or you could also pipe tinted frosting too, it's really up to you!
Now this dandy gent is ready to delight kids and adults alike! He's a real sweetie!
* Bizarre like my Dad convinced my sister and me that we needed to rake the yard or the Easter Bunny would not visit us because he was afraid he'd get thistles in his paws. And every year my sister made me count all the jelly beans in my basket to make sure I didn't get more than she did! Every year!
All photos courtesy of Erin Tapken.
I love this! So adorable and creative.
It's unfortunate that because I'm dieting, I was unable to eat more than a few bites of the cake before I had to throw it out. That is total cake sacrilige!
That's pretty cute. I recall my aunt making one of these for me when I was THIS HIGH (hand right about mid-thigh) but I don't think coconut was invented yet. Joke. Actually, IIRC, the frosting was probably that overly sweet spun sugar-type that they outlawed 3 decades ago.