Easter Bunny Carrot Cake

Last year when I made my Easter speckled piñata cake I commented on how the impending Easter weekend was mainly just traffic jams, weird opening hours and being unable to get a table in the pub. This year I think things are probably going to go in the same direction. But it does give us an excuse to consume ridiculous amounts of chocolate and not feel bad about it which I guess makes these slight inconveniences worth it.

When you think of Easter you usually think of chocolate and bunnies. Therefore this cake has got it covered by featuring bunnies made of chocolate. The sponge itself is a Paul Hollywood’s recipe. The end result was delicious and I would definitely make it again!

Prep time: 1.5 hours

Serves: 10

Ingredients:

For the cakes:

155ml Sunflower oil

230g Self-raising flour

1 Tsp baking powder

1½ Tsp cinnamon

½ Tsp mixed spice

½ Tsp ground ginger

230g Light brown muscovado sugar

Finely grated zest of 1 orange

100g Pecans, halved

260g Carrots, coarsely grated

3 Eggs

For the Icing and decoration:

100g Softened Butter

180g Cream Cheese

500g Icing Sugar

5 mini Lindt Bunnies

A packet of Galaxy golden eggs

Method:

1.Preheat the oven to 160C/325F/Gas Mark 3 and then grease 3, 6 inch cake tins with cake release or line with baking paper.

2. Sift the flour, baking powder and spices into a large bowl.

3. Add the sugar, zest, pecans and grated carrots, then stir until well combined.

4. Stir in the beaten eggs and oil, then mix well.

5. Pour into the prepared cake tins and bake in the oven for 30 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean when inserted in the centre.

6. While the cakes are cooling you can make the icing. Beat together the butter and cream cheese until light and fluffy and then add the icing sugar a bit at a time until combined.

7. Fill a piping bag with the cream cheese icing and then pipe dots on top of the first and second layers of cake.

8. When it comes to piping the third layer, pipe large dots around the perimeter of the cake and then swipe the dots towards the centre of the cake with a small cranked spatula. Do one more inner circle of swiped dots.

9. Dust the Lindt bunnies with gold lustre dust. Arrange them and the golden eggs in a circle on top of the cake. Sprinkle gold glitter over the whole cake.