I Love Coconut Bunny Cake

If you don't like coconut, you can still make this bunny cake. I know there are people out there that don't like coconut. I just don't understand it.

All that is required to make the bunny cake is two 8x8 (20 cm x 20 cm) round cakes. My mom used to make this cake for us using yellow cakes. Last year we used standard white cakes and butter cream frosting. Carrot cake with cream cheese frosting would be wonderful. Maybe we will make that next year.

This year I decided to make a coconut sour cream cake and cream cheese frosting. The sour cream makes the cake so so moist and the cream of coconut adds a subtle coconut flavor and a touch of sweetness. As a side note, cream of coconut makes the best Pina Coladas. I usually find it in the liquor department, but this time I found a squeeze bottle in the baking department. Oh happy day! A squeeze bottle of cream of coconut.

Sour Cream Coconut Cake

1 Box (18.25 oz./ 517 g) White Cake mix
1/4 Cup (60 ml) of Vegetable or Canola Oil
3 Large Eggs
8 oz (227 g) Sour Cream
1 Cup (250 ml) Cream of Coconut

Preheat oven to 350F/180C/Gas Mark 4. Grease two 8 inch (20 cm) cake pans and set aside. Mix all of the ingredients together until well blended.

Pour cake batter into prepared pans and bake for 27- 32 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center of cake comes out clean.

Cool 10 minutes before removing from pan. Cool completely before frosting.

Cream Cheese Frosting

8 oz (227 g) Cream Cheese, Softened
1/4 Cup (28 g) of Butter, Softened
1 Tsp of Vanilla
16 oz (454 g) of Powdered Sugar

Cream the cream cheese, butter and vanilla together and slowly add powdered sugar.

Cover a large cookie sheet, board, or piece of cardboard with foil. Place one round cake on the foil. Make a bow tie and ears from the other cake. I like to make a stencil from wax paper to cut the cake into ears and a bow tie. See diagram below.

Place bow tie below the bunny's head and the ears on top.

Ice the cake.

To decorate the ears, I took the ear stencil and cut out the area that should be pink and place over the ear. Next I filled in the wax paper with pink sugar. Then I took the part of the stencil that was cut out and placed it over the pink sugar. The last step is to cover the bunny in coconut.

The next part is the best part, decorating the bunny cake. (Katie had the idea of adding the licorice as hair).