Easter Chick Cake

Here is the cake I made for Easter. We always seem to have a cake for Easter, and every year it is different. We used to always make a bunny cake, the classic bunny head where you bake two round layer cakes, use one for the head, and cut the other into two ears and a bow tie. This makes a very cute cake, that can be decorated in many different ways: icing, chocolate, candies, jelly beans, licorice, coconut, etc. We have been making these bunny cakes, and I have helped decorate them for as long as I can remember. Even though every time you make this cake it is different, I was still getting a bit tired of making the same old shape. So two years ago, I decided to make a different bunny cake. For this bunny cake, I made the entire bunny instead of just the head. Again, I baked two round layers. I cut one in half, and stood the two halves together with some icing to hold them, to form the bunny's body. Then I cut a head, a tail, four feet, and two ears from the other layer cake. I made this cake my signature chocolate and used chocolate fudge icing to make a brown bunny. 

Last year, I decided to step away from the bunny theme completely. I made an Easter basket cake. I used two round layers, from a cake recipe that rose very high, which made a nice tall basket. From one of the layers, I scooped out a shallow, round area, leaving a two-inch border around the cake. I stacked them together like most plain birthday cakes. I dirty-iced it in chocolate frosting, then piped more chocolate frosting all over the sides of the cake in a basket-weave design. I added a purple rope border on the bottom, and a yellow on the top. The day before, I had made some sugar cookie dough, and had cut two basket handle shapes for the cake (one was for back-up in case the first broke).I iced these in chocolate icing. With the extra dough, I also baked some bunny shapes and egg shapes. I decorated them with purple and yellow icing and sprinkles. I placed the handle on the cake, and placed the bunny and egg cookies into the shallow opening in the cake. This cake was very fun to make, and I think it turned out really well for my first attempt at anything like this.

This year, I wanted to stay away from the bunny theme again, but I still wanted to do something different from a basket cake. I decided to make a chick cake. I wasn't completely sure how I could go about doing this, so I looked it up online. I found a really easy template for a chick cake, using two round layer cakes, so I followed that. From one cake layer, simply cut a jagged pattern about 3/4 of the way down the cake to make the two pieces of shell. From the other cake layer, cut a straight line about 3/4 or a little more of the way down the cake, then cut that piece in half. This forms the chick body and the arms. I frosted it with cream cheese icing (since I used carrot cake): white for the shell, and yellow for the chick. Then I added some piping, made the face, wrote Happy Easter, and put on some candy-coated chocolates for decoration.  You could also use coconut for both the egg and the chick if you like coconut, just color it yellow for the chick. Then you can still decorate it with candies and more icing. This cake was actually pretty easy and surprisingly quick, or maybe I am just getting better at cakes with practice.

Happy Easter!