How To Make A Bunny Cake

Arguably, the cutest cakes of the year are bunny cakes made for Easter. Bunny cakes just look slightly more realistic than Santa Claus cakes! The finished product looks like you baked all day, when it’s actually one of the easiest cakes you can make since there are no special pans or tools required. The only thing you need to know is how to cut the cake. Just follow the instructions below and you’ll have a centerpiece in no time. Children and adults alike will all have plenty of oohs and aahs when the cake is presented. Not only can you vary the ingredients of a bunny cake, but you can also alter the shape – either choosing a full body bunny cake made from 2 round layer cakes, a close up of the bunny face bunny cake also made from 2 round layer cakes, or even a cupcake bunny cake that is completely made with cupcakes so that there’s no need to dirty a dessert plate after Easter dinner.

Bunny Cakes – The Options:

For children, I’ve found that the Party rainbow chip cake mix by Betty Crocker with matching icing is by far the most popular. For adults, your best chocolate cake recipe with a whipped white frosting and coconut on the outside fits the bill.

For this full body bunny cake pictured, it’s coconut all the way.
It began with a yellow cake mix made with 3 eggs, 1 cup coconut cream and 1/2 cup of butter flavor Crisco instead of the ingredients called for on the box. It’s then mixed and baked according to the directions on the box, but the batter will be thick and the cake denser than a usual cake mix cake.

For the icing, cream 2T butter with 5T cream cheese then mix in 5T coconut cream and about 4 cups of confectioners sugar (more or less to get the right spreading consistency).
But also with the frosting, coconut is not so popular with children – most seem to prefer the can of funfetti frosting.

It’s the design that’s important for a bunny cake, use whatever cake and frosting recipes are most popular with your audience and then decide whether to make either a full body bunny cake, a bunny cake of just the face or a bunny cake made with all cupcakes for easy serving. All of these options for bunny cakes are described below.

How To Make A Bunny Cake – Full Body:

(as shown above)

1) Bake 2 round cakes (8″ or 9″).

2) When cool, cut the cakes in half so you’ve got 4 semi-circles.

3) Place 2 on a platter with the cut sides facing down and the flat sides facing each other.

4) Cut the other 2 semi-circles into about half again so you now have 1/4 circles and place these 1/4 circles with one cut side down and the other cut side against the semi-circles (again the flat sides of the cake facing each other) to form the bunny’s head. It should look like a bunny already.

5) Frost away. Put frosting between the layers first to keep the 2 sides together and then make sure to fill in frosting at the neck to keep the head attached. Then frost the outsides.

6) If desired, sprinkle with either coconut right after frosting or easter colored sprinkles.

7) Press jelly beans in for the eyes, string licorice for the whiskers, and don’t forget a large marshmallow for the tail.

8) The ears are cut from white construction or card stock paper with pink paper glued inside of white paper.

How To Make A Bunny Cake – Face Only:

1) Begin with two 8″ round baked cakes.

2) Place one cake on the platter near the bottom. Cut the other cake into 3 pieces with 2 curved cuts that match the curve of the cake – leaving 2 bunny ears on the outside of the cake and a bow tie in the middle. Arrange the 2 ears on top of the circle cake and the bow tie underneath the circle cake.









3) Frost the pieces and then decorate as follows:
Jelly beans (or here we used hard strawberry candies) for the bunny eyes and straight red or black licorice (or a strand from a Twizzler) for the whiskers. The center of the ears should have pink frosting (made with a drop of red food coloring into a small amount of your white frosting) or a red fruit roll-up also works. You can also use a cake decorating tube to outline facial expressions.

How To Make A Bunny Cake – From Cupcakes:

Starting with cupcakes to make a bunny cake is not only a fun way to make a bunny cake, but also makes clean up easier without plates and forks to wash.

1) Bake 24 Cupcakes.
2) Frost each cupcake and then arrange on a tray as follows:

Then ice and decorate with jelly beans (or gum balls, M&M’s, icing, etc), licorice (or spaghetti, an icing pen,etc) and pink icing (or sprinkles left from Valentines Day, etc) – let the creative juices flow.

Or, use mini marshmallows on top of the frosting all over the cake like Betty Crocker.

Have a Happy Easter!

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