Easy-to-make, easy-to-decorate Easter cakes – Crafts Edition
Inger Skaarup
Treat your guests to a beautifully decorated cake.
Here are several easy-to-make cakes that can be the
highlight of any spring celebration.
Cake decorating is such a
highly-developed art that it can
hardly be limited to the classification
of baking and cooking. Specialty
cakes, decorated to resemble all
kinds of objects, can actually serve as
a table centerpiece as well as dessert.
If you’ve never tried cake decorating,
you may be surprised to learn
how relatively easy it really is. You
can produce the Easter Bunny Cake
or the Mini Egg Cakes without any
special skills.
Our cakes were decorated with
ready-to-spread frosting tinted with
food coloring. We used disposable
icing tubes and a half dozen different
decorating tips, However, you could
just as easily spread the frosting with
a spatula knife and obtain almost the
same results.
Here’s how we made our Easter
Bunny and Mini Egg Cakes.
Easter Bunny Cake
Materials: One 8-inch round cake
pan, half recipe of standard cake
mix, piece of plastic (cut from milk
jug), two containers of vanilla
ready-to-spread frosting, pink and green
food coloring, two blue and one pink
candies, three pieces of uncooked
spaghetti, one large marshmallow,
and a spatula knife. Optional items:
icing bags, decorating tips
(multi-opening, small closed star, leaf),
shredded coconut.
Cut two long oval shapes from
milk jug plastic for ears; set aside.
Tint small amount of vanilla frosting
pink and another small amount
green; set aside.
Bake the cake according to
age directions; allow to cool. Brush
away excess crumbs, cut in cake in
half. Spread white frosting on the
bottom of one half, sandwich to bottom
of other half. Place cake on plate
with cut edge down.
Fill any remaining gaps between
the two cake layers with additional
white frosting; spread frosting over
entire cake, or cover it using
multi-opening decorating tip to produce
“furry” effect.
Apply dab of white frosting to one
side of a large marshmallow, place at
one end for tail, cover with frosting.
Insert both plastic ear pieces into
front of cake as indicated on photo.
Cover outside of ear with white
frosting; inside with pink frosting. If
using a decorating tip, use the small
closed star shape to fill in inner ear.
(If you are not using decorating tips,
unfrosted white cardboard can be
substituted to form ears.)
Insert two blue candies into frosting
for eyes; insert one pink candy
for nose. Break uncooked spaghetti
noodles in half, insert three on each
side of nose for whiskers. Apply a
mouth of pink frosting with decorating
tip, if desired.
Finishing: With green frosting and
leaf decorating tip, form “grass”
around bottom edge of bunny. A few
jelly beans may be placed around the
green frosting, if desired. (If you are
not using decorating tips but want
your Easter Bunny cake to have a
“furry” appearance, shredded
coconut may be sprinkled on surface
of white frosting.
Mini Egg Cakes
These mini eggs are easy to make
and fun to decorate. Your guests
will just love to be able to pick their
favorite decorated egg.
Materials: The recipe and ingredients
for a yellow or white cake
(or a cake mix), vegetable oil for
greasing pans, apricot jam, a pastry
brush and icing in the colors
of your choice. Remember, you
may tint any white icing using
food coloring pastes, or choose
your colors from pre-tinted,
ready-to-spread frostings. You
also will need a mini egg cake
pan or a sheet cake pan and an
oval cookie cutter.
Begin by baking the egg
cakes using your favorite cake
recipe or cake mix. Pour the
batter into well-oiled mini
egg pan and bake at 350
degrees for 20 to 25 minutes,
or until done. (A cake mix
will make about 12 eggs.
Set remaining batter aside
and bake a second batch.)
Remove cakes to a baking
rack to cool.
If you do not have a
mini egg cake pan, make
the egg cakes by baking
a shallow cake in a large
sheet cake pan. Use an
oval cookie cutter to cut
out egg shapes when
cake has cooled.
Before you proceed
to preparing the frosting
and decorating the
eggs, melt about 1/2
cup of apricot jam
in a saucepan. Care
brush the loose crumbs off the
egg-shaped cakes with a dry pastry brush.
Then, using the same brush, cover
the cakes with a thin layer of the
melted jam. This creates a nice,
smooth surface for the icing glaze.
Select the color for your base icing
by coloring a white icing with food
coloring paste, or simply by selecting
a pre-colored icing. Place the egg-shaped
cakes on a baking rack set on
a tray to catch any icing drips. Now
melt the icing in a microwave for
14 to 45 seconds, depending on the
microwave. Stop every 15 seconds
and check, by stirring gently, to see
if the icing has reached pouring
consistency. (Do not let the icing get
so hot that it cooks.)
When the icing is pourable,
carefully pour it over the eggs, making
sure to cover the surface completely.
Allow the excess icing to drip onto
the tray below. Let the egg cakes dry
for about 15 minutes before finishing
the decorations.
Finishing: Decorate the eggs by
piping designs onto the surface with
contrasting colors and various
decorating tips. If you do not have any
cake decorating supplies, decorate
the cakes by dripping a random pattern
of icing from the tines of a fork.
You may also “glue” jelly beans and
other candies
onto the cakes with a little
icing. Candied flowers and
glazed nuts also can be used.
The eggs may be made ahead
and decorated up to one day
ahead. Store, tightly covered in
plastic wrap until ready to serve.
COPYRIGHT 1998 KC Publishers, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2000 Gale Group
