Easter Bunny Cake

Yep, here it is. The OMG moment for many of my friends. I have a boxed cake mix baking in my oven. Gasp! There are good reasons, and the best is tradition, this is an Easter project I remember from childhood and I have tried to get my own kids to do it over the years. Could it be made from scratch? Absolutely! Does my 15 year old daughter want to bake a cake from scratch? Not really. You can't believe how hard it was for me to talk her out of canned icing!!!! Yuck!!! With a trusty box of Duncan Hines, I can pretty much let her loose in the kitchen. I also sold Duncan Hines cake mix back in the 80's when I worked for Procter and Gamble, so I can totally sell you on all of its fine qualities.
Before we launch into the easy bunny cake, let's talk quick about the old fashioned cake molds and the newer versions of shaped pans at Williams Sonoma and other retailers. I can remember as a kid making the lamb. It stood in the oven as it baked, and it never, ever held together. I now know that your basic boxed cake mix is too soft to hold up to theses molds. If you are making any type of cake that stands or is molded use a pound cake, bundt cake or old fashioned homemade cake recipe. Trust me on this.
So basically this fun Easter Bunny cake begins with 2 cake layers, 8,9 or 10 inch layers are fine. Bake them as directed and feel free to use any flavor. After the cakes have baked, cool in the pans for about 15 minutes and then pop them out and cool on a rack. Following the pictures, you are going to cut one of the layers to make 2 ears and a bow tie. Then you assemble the bunny using the uncut layer as his head.
Here is the buttercream frosting we made.

Buttercream
5 oz. unsweetened chocolate
6 cups confectioners sugar
2 sticks butter, unsalted and at room temp
6 T. milk plus more if needed
2 teaspoons vanilla (I used clear, fake so my frosting would be white)
¼ teaspoon salt
Put the chocolate in the top of double boiler and melt. Then cool to room temp. In the bowl of electric mixer, beat butter until fluffy. Add sugar, vanilla and milk on low speed. Increase speed. Add more milk if it seems dry. Take about 1 cup frosting and set aside. Add melted chocolate to the rest and mix well.

We frosted our bunny in chocolate and made the ears white and white eyes. We dyed the rest pink and filled his ears. Jelly bean eyes and tie polka dots work well. Licorice whiskers are good, but we didn't have any so I rolled out pink marshmallows and cut them in strips with a pizza cutter. Feel free to use up whatever candy or decorations you have around! Happy Easter!