Bunny Butt Cake

This bunny butt cake is an easy Easter cake that everyone of all ages can enjoy. It makes an adorable display on any dessert table and it’s deceptively easy to make! This big bunny is a vintage design that is getting new life, moms and grandmas had great ideas and I love giving them a modern moment! 

Made with our simple one-bowl vanilla cake, easy buttercream, some fondant, and a bag of shredded coconut, this cake comes together from start to finish in about 3 hours.

Ingredients

Sweetened Shredded Coconut: This bag of goodness is so versatile! It is a great addition to cake batter to flavor a cake as well as an easy way to decorate the outside of your cake. 

Easy Buttercream: This frosting is great for these fun quick projects because it comes together fast and tastes great. The consistency is great for the “grass” but also for sticking the white coconut for the bunny texture. 

Vanilla cake (One Bowl): This cake recipe is perfect for this project because it is fast and easy. The cake is sturdy and handles well, so no worries about it crumbling or breaking apart once it has cooled. All simple ingredients are found on a baker's shelf, nothing obscure or hard to find. I kept the flavor vanilla, but you could add coconut extract to change the flavor to match the decor.

Making a Bunny Butt Cake

This is an easy cake to make, but it does have 5 different components to come together. I recommend you make the fondant bunny ears and feet first, then vanilla cake and cupcakes, then the frosting, the tail and feet, and finally assemble it all together.

Making The Easy Vanilla Cake

1. Preheat the oven to 335ºF (168ºC) and prepare one 7-inch hemisphere-shaped cake pan or a 2-quart ovenproof bowl of equivalent size, with cake goop or another pan release.
2. Measure out all of the ingredients using a digital kitchen scale. Pro-tip: You can mix the wet and dry ingredients separately for a finer texture, or just measure and add directly into the bowl of your stand mixer for fewer dishes.
3. In a large bowl, combine and mix together the buttermilk, butter, oil, eggs, and vanilla. The wet ingredients should all be slightly warm.
4. Combine the flour, sugar, salt, baking soda, and baking powder in the bowl of your stand mixer with the paddle attachment on low speed.
5. While the mixer is on low speed, pour the wet ingredients slowly into the dry ingredients.
6. Mix the batter on medium speed and mix for 1 minute until the batter is combined and looks like pancake batter. Scrape the sides of the bowl to make sure all of the ingredients are combined.
7. Pour cake batter into the dome cake pan and then fill 6 prepared muffin cups with the remaining batter.
8. Bake the cupcakes in the same oven as the cake, but set a time to remove them at 12-15 minutes.
9. Use an empty 6-inch cake pan as a stabilizer for your dome pan while it is baking. Bake the cake for 40-50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
10. Allow the cake to cool for 10 minutes and flip it out onto a wire rack. Pro-tip: If you plan to frost and decorate the cake on the same day, you can place the cakes into the freezer unwrapped for about an hour or until they are cold (but not frozen). If you plan to decorate your cake at a later date, then you will wrap the cakes in plastic wrap first before freezing them.

Easy Buttercream Frosting

1. Place the egg whites and the powdered sugar in the bowl of your stand mixer. Use the whip attachment and combine the ingredients on low speed, and then whip them on high for 4-5 minutes (until shiny) to dissolve the powdered sugar.
2. Then, add the salt and the vanilla extract.
3. Add in the softened butter piece-by-piece, and whip it with the whisk attachment to combine. It will look curdled at first. This is normal. It will also look pretty yellow, keep whipping.
4. Whip it on high speed with the whisk attachment for 8-10 minutes until the buttercream is white, light, and shiny. If it tastes like sweet ice cream, then it's ready!
5. Finally, switch to a paddle attachment and mix the buttercream on low speed for up to 18-20 minutes to make the buttercream ultra smooth and remove any air bubbles.
6. Color about 2 cups of buttercream green for the grass and prepare a piping bag with a grass tip.
7. Color about 2 cups of buttercream pink for the body of the bunny, or leave it white if you prefer.

Preparing the fondant bunny feet and ears

1. Make the ears and feet a day ahead so that they have time to dry, or you can buy a cute little set already made. 
2. Color about 2 ounces of white fondant with pink food coloring for the details in the ears and feet.
3. Roll the white and pink fondant very thin on a surface prepared with cornstarch to avoid sticking.
4. While the fondant surface dries slightly, trace ears and feet shapes on a piece of paper and cut them out. This is to make a guide for your blade while cutting out the shapes.
5. Cut all of the white and pink shapes out with a sharp blade.
6. Using a brush moistened with water, brush the pink bits and stick them to the white bunny's feet and ears.
7. Bend over one ear and lay all of the cutouts on a tray lined with parchment paper to dry. The ears need extra dry time to stand up.

Making the cake pop dough tail and feet

1. Crumble the cupcakes in a large bowl.
2. Add about ½ cup of buttercream to the crumbs and mix them together until it forms a dough. You can use another tablespoon of the buttercream if the dough is still crumbly.
3. Using your hands, create one big cake ball of dough for the tail and 2 smaller balls for the feet. I elongated the shape of the feet so they are a little more rabbit-like and so they match the fondant feet.
4. Roll the tail ball and feet in the shredded coconut.
5. Let the cake dough balls set up in the fridge for 10 minutes while you assemble the bunny.

Assembling the Bunny Butt Cake

1. Trim the bunny cake so that the dome can sit level and trim the cake board to fit evenly with the cake.
2. On a large round cake board or platter, place the baked domed cake flat side down in the center.
3. Spread a generous layer of easy buttercream evenly over the cake.
4. Press the shredded coconut onto the side of the cake until fully covered.
5. Add two wooden skewers to the top-back of the dome cake and add the tail.
6. Using a dollop of buttercream, stick the bunny feet in the desired locations.
7. Pipe the green grass buttercream around the bottom edge of the bunny's body and fill in the remaining space on the platter.
8. Use another dollop of buttercream on the foot pads and stick the bottoms of bunny feet with the toes facing down.
9. Next, add the fondant ears on the front of the bunny with a dollop of buttercream.
10. Sprinkle colorful jellybeans or chocolate eggs around in the "grass".

FAQ

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