Easter Bunny Cake

Love the design. I made this for my family on Easter and it was a big hit. So worth the time and effort put into it. I used M&M instead of gumdrops or jelly beans. With the cream cheese frosting and coconut flakes gave it a great flavor. I also like how easy it was to cut into when it was time to eat it. The cake in all came out excellent I look forward into making it again next year!!!

I made this cake this evening for Easter tomorrow. I think it came out pretty well. First off, I used a yellow cake mix instead of carrot cake. I am not a fan of carrot cake so I decided not to use it. I made one 9 inch round cake with about 60% of the mix, and I used the remainder of the mix to make 8 cupcakes, which I froze, unfrosted, for later use. I cooled the round cake on a wire rack and then cut it in half. I sliced out a portion of the top as the directions say you should, and used it for the tail, which I attached with toothpicks. However, before putting the 2 halves together, I spread icing on the inside to make them adhere together better while I was icing the outside. I used the Whipped frosting and I thought it worked very well for this cake - better than regular frosting would have. It was smooth over the cut out surfaces, which would normally have crumbled (in my experience) with just regular frosting. I used one whole container of white whipped frosting and just frosted over the entire body, head and tail areas. I then used a pretty liberal amount of shredded coconut over the entire cake to mimic the "fur". I had Skittles on hand so I used those for the eyes and nose, and also for the "eggs" that were in the grass surrounding the bunny. I dyed about 3/4 cup of coconut green in a baggie with a few drops of food coloring and put it around the cake with the extra Skittles to look like grass. Probably the main departure that I had from the recipe as written were the ears. I had some Nonni's biscotti (lemon flavor) and I used 2 of those for the ears. I was going to frost them with the icing but once I put them on, I didn't think it was necessary. I just read here that someone else used that idea as well. It's a good one!! It worked out really well. Posted a picture to Facebook and have had a ton of comments - let's hope it tastes as good as it looks! :) Will be making this again next year for sure!