Bunny Cake Debrief

So as I said yesterday, because making Bunny Cake this year was especially fun, (AND THREE DIMENSIONAL) and because the photos of my bunny and his enormous three-dimensional tail came out especially well, I figured it couldn't hurt to share a few more photos of his construction. Feel free to scroll through and pay as much or as little attention as you wish.

BUNNY CAKE
or
BUTTERMILK CAKE IN THE SHAPE OF A BUNNY COVERED IN BOILED FROSTING

The traditional cake for this is a simple White Cake (Martha Stewart has a really good recipe for that, btw, if you're interested). I went with a Buttermilk cake this year, though, because I wanted something that was a bit denser, a bit deeper-tasting, slightly less sweet. I was hoping that the more mellow taste of the cake would balance out the sheer simple sweetness of the frosting, and that the moistness and heaviness of the crumb would be a good pairing for its lightness and air.

I also wanted something that would stand up to being cut into the shape of a rotund rabbit with floppy ears and a prominent pouf on his backside.

Anyway. I went with the Nigella Lawson Buttermilk Cake because I'd had such good reviews of it at the Olympics Party.

You may note, dear reader, that in my culinary thoughts above, the one thing that was never under consideration, discussion, or debate of any kind was the type of frosting that would be used. This is because Boiled Frosting is THE ONLY FROSTING THAT MAY EVER BE USED ON BUNNY CAKE UNTIL THE END OF TIME WORLD WITHOUT END AMEN END OF STORY.

I hope I've made that clear.

Now, this is the part where I tell you that I have about a bazillion recipes for boiled frosting. Most of them are written on dirty old index cards in the recipe box on the counter, passed down through who knows how many kitchens. The others are in ancient, food spattered cookbooks in the living room, including my delightfully insane The New American Cookbook.*

*this one, incidentally, also has a stiffened section in the middle where I had to coat it in baking soda and let it sit for three days because a certain cat decided to leap on the dining room table, position herself directly over the book, and be delicately sick.

This is also the part where I tell you (and say a silent apology to Great Grandmother Bull, Great Aunt Jane, Aunt Peggy, and Nanny Congden) that the recipe I've had the best results with is Martha Stewart's. I'M SORRY YOU GUYS I REALLY AM BUT THE TASTING SPOON DOESN'T LIE.

Anyway.

After whipping the crap out of the egg whites and pouring the boiling sugar into the mixer WITHOUT scalding my arms or hands, I brought a glossy, stiff, GLORIOUS spoonful out to Mum who was in the garden outside.

She took the spoon, licked it, handed it back, and shouted over her headphones (note: shouting over something only SHE could hear therefore incredibly loud):

"DEATH."

I assumed that meant "good job, Beetle" and returned to the kitchen in triumph.

It is Death, really. You can't stop eating it. But what a wonderful way to die.

And now for the "cake cutting and placement and coating in frosting" slideshow. Enjoy!

Brief period when the bunny resembled an angel.

Ear placement.

Everything in place but the tail.

Commencing frosting coverage. 

First layer.

Second layer.

Third layer plus tail. 

The tail in all its glory.

Note: Mum saved the tail for last. She started with ears and worked her way down.

Glorious, shiny, boiled frosting.

It's the stuff dreams are made of. 

I'm not being facetious I think it actually IS. 

So there you have it, dear reader. Bunny Cake 2014. 

I think my friend Mike summed it up when, upon receiving a text with a photo of it he responded: 

Oh crap. 

He fell over. 

And he can't get up. 

It was the weight of his awesomeness. 

THE WEIGHT OF HIS AWESOMENESS.

Various Easter Loose Ends

I suppose you all wouldn't believe me if I said I got kidnapped by the Easter Bunny and had until today been held in his lair forced to paint eggs and hide baskets full of chocolate and that is why I'm late in sharing photos of bunnies made out of marzipan and frosting? 

No? 

Didn't think so. 

Easter, due to circumstances unforeseen and really far too boring to explain, ended up being noneventful to the point of "just another weekend." Which, technically . . . without getting into a massive theological argument . . . let's just put it this way: we here at Beetle HQ celebrate the arrival of spring, and bunnies, and carrots. And that's kind of where it stops. 

The point is that the menu I had planned had to be scaled down in favour of just the two of us, and one of us is lactarded. Thus: 

HOT CROSS TOAST

Regardless of your religious proclivities, it just wouldn't be Easter with hot cross buns, would it? No. I had planned on a glorious panful of gooey buns hot from the oven smothered in icing and devoured by a table of hungry people all of whom have spectacular appetites. I did not get this. Now, Mum is good, but she's not capable of housing an entire pan of buns before they go stale, and if she did, then we'd be in the ER. But I still had to make them. WHAT TO DO. 

What I ended up doing was taking an idea out of a back issue of Donna Hay and, instead of dividing the dough into individual buns, I shoved it all into a loaf pan and made hot cross bun BREAD. Which . . . AWESOME. The thing about hot cross buns is that it's just a simple sweet dough, so you can do almost anything with it. I wasn't sure on the cook time, because of course it would take longer than buns, so I let it go for 25 minutes at 425 and then dialed the oven down to 350 and let it bake for another 15 or so. And it cooked through really well, no burny bottom, no doughy inside. The finished bread was dense but not heavy, slightly sweet, chewy, and perfect for the toaster (after which it could of course be iced or buttered or jammed or what have you). It also lasted up until the heel end of the loaf without going dry. 

I did make a note to mark an X in the top of the loaf for next time (or, ahem, a CROSS) if you will, since the rising process in the oven did produce a pretty spectacular craggy pinnacle mountain of dough situation, as you can see. 

But Hot Cross Toast is now A THING. So. That happened. 

THINGS THAT ARE NOT TOAST AND CAKES SHAPED LIKE BUNNIES

or

PANFRIED LIMA BEANS AND ONIONS

and

DILL ROASTED CARROTS

Again, working with a scaled back menu and needing something that would keep as leftovers, and also be great for adding to salads a day or two after, these ended up being the main courses for dinner on Sunday. I have no Beetle Notes apart from saying they were delicious and seasonally appropriate. Oh I guess one, if you can manage to crisp the sides of the Lima Beans in cooking, ABSOLUTELY DO. It makes all the difference. Also, regarding carrots, enough with this "maple glazed" nonsense. DILL, PEOPLE. ALL YOU NEED IS DILL. Cover them in dill, shove 'em in the oven, and sit back and relax. Maple Syrup. No wonder the whole world has diabetes. Maple syrup. I ASK YOU. 

Ahem. 

But Beetle, I can hear you saying, that's all well and good but what we're really here for is not a lecture on the breakdown of starches into sugars and their effect on the human bloodstream but, obviously, CAKE. 

Sorry, dear reader, where are my manners? I present. 

BUNNY CAKE FACE OFF 2014

MARZIPAN BUNNY CAKE FOR THE LOVELY LIBRARIANS

This recipe is one that I've had a bookmark in for a really long time. It's Nigella Lawson's "Easy Almond Cake" which for the purposes of Easter I'm renaming "Marzipan Bunny Cake."

Nigella is totally correct in calling this EASY because it really is. One mixing bowl, in the pan, in the oven, done. 

The most time consuming part, gotta say, (and this is totally something I brought upon myself, THERE IS NO ONE TO BLAME BUT BEETLE HERE) was gluing cotton ball tails onto construction paper rabbits and then affixing them to toothpicks and then folding more construction paper into grass stalks and positioning them along with construction paper carrots in the center of the cake stuffed with tissue paper so they wouldn't fall down and then trying to fit that entire thing into a cake tray with lid and then attempting to instruct Mum on precisely HOW to hold the tray so the entire thing wouldn't die between our house and the library and precisely HOW to remove the lid once she got to the library so that in removal the lid would not decapitate said construction paper bunnies and ruin the entire effect of bunnies sitting contentedly in the grass surrounded by carrots and marzipan and having a lovely afternoon. 

Believe me, compared to that, Marzipan Cake is . . . well . . .  a piece of cake. 

Oh come one. You would have gone there too. 

THE OFFICIAL BEETLE BUNNY CAKE

Official Bunny Cake is one of those things that you make every year because you can't remember a year when it WASN'T made and you sort of fear in the back of your mind that if you don't make it then the locusts and frogs and riders and everything else that signals the apocalypse will shortly follow and also why in heaven's name WOULDN'T you make it because it's a buttery white cake covered in the most delicious concoction known to human kind aka Boiled Frosting and it's also IN THE SHAPE OF AN ENORMOUS RABBIT and how could that NOT be a good project for a Saturday afternoon? 

Back in the day [insert sepia toned nostalgia montage here] when my grandmother and I made this in her kitchen every year, Bunny Cake was actually the size of a small child, and had pipe cleaner whiskers, and Brachs jelly beans for the eyes and mouth, and I made myself sick licking the beaters clean of boiled frosting, and it was the greatest thing ever. 

I'd like to think that Bunny Cake has maintained its "greatest thing ever" status, but that he's been updated for the modern era. Streamlined, minimalist, chic. 

I do realise I'm talking about a cake here. A cake in the shape of a rabbit. And that the only thing "streamlined" about him is the way the frosting is stretched over his rather large and rather poufy posterior. 

This year was the year of the THREE DIMENSIONAL BUNNY. Wherein I cut a circle out of the excess cake and stuck it on with frosting, then covered it in MORE frosting and voila. 

Streamlined? Debatable. Awesome? 

 YOU TELL ME.

Because I had so much fun with this one and the photos came out nicely, I think I'm going to do a BUNNY CAKE CONSTRUCTION post with more photos, perhaps tomorrow or Wednesday. But I wanted to make sure you guys all got the jist.

Bunny Cake 2.0

A New Generation of Bunny Cake

The Bunny Cake S5

Eh. We'll get there in the end.