How not to make a Frankenstein Easter Bunny

With my Easter cupcake class overly full (okay, if anyone is desperate I can take ONE more person - but that's it!!!!) I had to get around to designing my own special Easter Bunny to sit atop one of the cupcakes that I'm planning to teach.

 This was my final bunny. He's fat and happy, he has a few little Easter eggs to give out to passing children, and at the moment, he's nestled on a green cupcake top in the middle of a crop of baby rocket leaves. I thought this would be likely to make him a happy bunny.


















This was the bunny model that I started off with. I have to tell you that I have no idea where this bunny came from. He's been sitting on top of my computer terminal at work for about a year and my best guess is that I found him by chance somewhere and installed him in his work position because of his goofy teeth and ridiculous ears. I love the lil guy.















So I set about trying to copy him in fondant. Here are my tools - the bunny, a box of premixed fondant, cornflour in a shaker, and some brown gel colouring.



What can I say except that modelling the bunny was somewhat harder than I thought it would be? I ended up with Frankenstein Bunny. His ears were kooky, his teeth were massive and crooked, his stature was small and his eyes were just plain crazy. A friend suggested to me that perhaps this was the Easter Bunny having delivered his eggs and tucked into the leftover Christmas brandy.

Time to try again. This time I thought strategically. Bunny needed to be simpler. Two balls of brown fondant, onew for his head and one for his tummy; Two ears made regular with cutters; a better, 'bunnier' nose; and less mad eyes. I started by using a tiny elliptical cutter for the ears. The cutter is about 12mm long.

I then used the same cutter with some pink fondant, but cut each elliptical piece of pink vertically so it was only half the width of the brown piece. I flattened out the brown piece by hand, stuck the pink piece in the middle of it with a touch of water, and inserted a 1cm length of florist's wire at the base so that I would be able to attach the earts to the bunny's head. I left these to dry sitting at the edge of a piece of foam so they would curve inwards slightly at the top.

 

It was time to make two circles of brown for the body and head. I stuck these together, then added a couple of timy brown balls for his feet and sliced them with a knife to look like paws; then I stuck on two pick circles for his muzzle, and two small white dots for his eyes. I put a few needle marks in his pink muzzle before it got too hard - these were in preparation for the whiskers.

The little darling was looking a bit porky, but I pressed on. I made two little arms and stuck them around his body with water. I gave him black pupils, floral wire whiskers and attached his ears before giving him a little tufty tail (not seen here) made of white fondant.

Sorted! A fat, happy, Easter bunny on a green base, all ready for Easter! (Now to teach my class members these skillss - but psst.... I've made it a bit easier for them... I plan to supply ready-made ears and teeth for those who can't master them ....

Happy (early) Easter from Dr Cupcake!