Easter cake decorating

How to Make an Easter Bunny Cake

By LeAnn Ralph


Making an Easter Bunny Cake
For many years, chocolate has had the poor reputation of being "bad for you." But researchers have now discovered that chocolate contains as many if not more antioxidants than tea.
To make this double-chocolate Easter bunny cake (chocolate cake and chocolate frosting), use your round layer-cake pan. In addition to the cake and frosting, you will need:
* jelly beans
* coconut
* malted milk eggs (the large ones that come in a variety of colors)
* 2 wafer cookies (for the ears)



Cake
* 1 1/2 cups flour
* 1 cup sugar
* 1 teaspoon baking powder
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 1/3 cup cocoa
* 3/4 cup milk
* 1/2 cup cooking oil
* 1 egg
* 1 teaspoon vanilla
Measure all ingredients into a medium-sized bowl. Use an electric mixer and blend at low speed for 1 minute. Scrape the bowl while blending. Beat at high speed for 2 to 3 minutes, scraping the bowl occasionally. Bake at 350 degrees for 35 to 40 minutes in a greased and floured round layer-cake pan. Allow the cake to cool thoroughly before removing it from the pan.



Frosting
* 3 cups powdered sugar
* 1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon cocoa
* 6 tablespoons butter, softened (or margarine, if you prefer)
* 1/4 cup milk
Measure all ingredients into a medium-sized mixing bowl. Blend at low speed for 1 minute. Scrape the bowl while blending. Beat at high speed for 2 to 3 minutes, scraping occasionally. If frosting seems too stiff, add milk by the teaspoon until the frosting reaches the desired consistency. If the frosting seems too thin, add powdered sugar by the tablespoon until the frosting reaches the desired consistency.



How to Make Your Chocolate Easter Bunny Cake
Remove the cake from the round cake pan. Cut in half. Frost the flat side of one half and put the two pieces together. Place on a platter or a large plate, cut side down.
Frost the cake with chocolate frosting.
Place two jelly beans for the eyes and one jelly bean for the nose. Use a large malted milk egg for the tail.
With a sharp knife, cut a hole on each side of the head where you want to place the ears. To make the ears, use the sharp knife to trim a wafer cookie into the shape of bunny ears. Frost the ears. Put a little frosting into the holes to anchor the ears.
Sprinkle coconut around the Easter bunny cake.


Decorate with jelly beans and malted milk eggs.

Baby Shower Cake Decorating

The Hottest Free Baby Shower Cake Decorating Ideas

By Chris Ryerson

Planning a cake for a baby shower can be a lot of fun. However, if you don’t feel like the creative type then this can be frustrating. By carefully planning the theme and thinking of the baby shower cake inscription first you can usually come up with a fun idea for decorating a cake.
Below are some ideas that will help you in picking the perfect baby shower cake.

Keep I mind this is just a list of some of the most popular baby shower cake ideas. The possibilities are limitless and hopefully the list of ideas below will spark your imaginations and ideas and you will come up with your own creative ideas for making a unique baby shower cake.
Winnie The Pooh Baby Shower Cake This one doesn’t need much explanation except that Winnie the Pooh is one of the most popular baby shower themes around.

The only decision you have to make is if you want the Classic or Modern Version of Pooh. Either way you can end up with a great looking cake. It is pretty easy to bake a cake and then cut the shape to look like Winnie the Pooh and the frost it to match.

Belly Baby Shower Cake

This one is also pretty self explanatory but can be a fun idea. Again you bake a cake and shape it like a mommy’s pregnant belly. You can then frost and decorate accordingly.

Baby Shower Gift Cake

Here is another fun free idea for a baby shower cake you can easily make at home. For this one just use a square pan and then frost it to look like a present. You can get as details as you want with this cake. Adding more ribbon (from frosting) and fancy wrapping paper (from frosting again) you can really add some special touches to a baby shower gift cake.

Gift Basket Baby Shower Cake

This one is closely related to the idea above. The main difference is the shape is a gift basket instead of a gift. It is becoming more common for people to give gift baskets at baby shower then straight gifts. Therefore this trend can be reflected in the cake decoration by making a baby shower gift basket out of the cake.

Rubber Ducky Baby Shower Cake

Here is a more creative shower cake for a baby or you might just say it is weird. However, a very popular theme for baby showers is a rubber duck. Therefore a rubber ducky baby shower cake fits well alongside this theme. Again this cake is pretty easy to make. You simple cook a big rectangular cake and then cut and shape the outside of the cake into the shape of a duck. Frost it with some yellow frosting and viola you have a rubber duck baby shower cake.

Boat or Noah’s Ark Baby Shower

Cake Again these might both sound pretty unusual as ideas for a cake. However, as people try harder and harder to fit the cake decorating in the decorations and theme of the party it makes sense to try a cake that fits as well. Typically, as stated above, baking a boat baby shower cake or a Noah’s ark cake is no harder then baking your standard everyday plain Jane cake. The only difference comes in the decorating and frosting part of it.

These are two popular ideas for cake decorating because they are two popular baby shower themes so it makes sense.

These are just a few of the more popular ideas for baby shower cake decorating ideas. There are a lot of other things that can be done and you are only limited to your time and budget. Hopefully these will spur on a few ideas for you to make your own creative or unique baby shower cake and have lot of fun finding ideas to decorate it.

CHOCOLATE CURLS

SMALL CHOCOLATE CURLS

It is a quick way of livening up your cakes. Ice or frost your cake with your favourite icing recipe, or chocolate ganache. Then, using a potato peeler shave off chocolate curls. The chocolate bar or block will need to be warm - around room temperature is usually fine. Scrape small curls by using the edge of your bar of chocolate. When you have mastered that, you can also make broader curls by scraping the peeler along the broad flat surface of the bar of chocolate.
You can use this as a very quick simple tip for cake decorating, and is an equally useful idea for any last-minute decorating of your chocolate mousse, puddings, after dinner desserts and ice cream