Easter Celebration Cake

Happy Easter! Here is the cake I made this year for Easter. I kept it fairly simple, and stuck with a round cake instead of a shaped cake. Not necessarily to be quicker or easier, but for something different and also I had to make another round layer cake anyway. I began with my signature chocolate cake recipe. Then I tried something a little different. Normally I just stick to my standard buttercream icing to frost a cake, or my favorite fudge frosting if i am looking for chocolate. This time, I decided to try a simple chocolate ganache to cover the cake.  I have always seemed a little daunted by ganache, since it seems so decadent and professional. But I went with it today, and I am sure glad I did! Gananche is a lot easier, faster, and more smooth looking than whipping up buttercream, spreading it on, and struggling to get it smooth. And I bet some would say ganache tastes better too, especially chocolate fans. It is so easy to cover a cake with ganache. I will probably resort to this instead of frosting again. Another bonus is, if you use dark chocolate  you can make a less sweet frosting if you like. Two downsides to using ganache is there is no real "vanilla" ganache, though using white chocolate may work (I've never tried), and you need to refrigerate the cake to let it set before continuing decorating. 

Once the ganache was set, I did make up a small batch of buttercream. I colored some yellow and some purple, Easter colors of course. Using two piping bags, two open star tips, and two hands, I piped an alternating star border around the bottom of the cake and a rope around the top. Then, I used cookie cutters to gently press the outline of a bunny head and a chick (it's actually an egg, I added the head) into the ganache, as I am not great at free-handed shapes like that. The chick turned out a bit on the big and fat side, but oh well. I filled both shapes in with open star tips, which is a simple technique, but one that always turns out nice  and often one I forget about. I really should use it more often. I added some facial features, then wrote Happy Easter at the top of the cake, and piped on a small Easter egg as well. It is a simple design, but very suitable for Easter!
I hope the Easter Bunny was good to everyone! :)