Bunny and Friends Easter Basket Cake – An Affordable Custom Cake

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Looking for something fun to serve on Easter? How about making a Bunny and Friends Easter Basket Cake!

I’m back with more 99 Cents Only Stores awesomeness! Do you remember the fun DIY Valentine’s Day Candy Buffet I shared last month? The kids (and hubby) enjoyed it so much that I wanted to do something fun for Easter too.

The idea for this cake came from my oldest daughter, who came with me on my last trip to the 99. Years ago, I made her a custom birthday cake and she constantly reminds me of how it’s her favorite cake, EVER. So while we were shopping at the store, she suggested a custom Easter cake – genius! And thanks to the 99, I was able to create a custom Bunny and Friends Easter Basket Cake for a fraction of the cost of a designer bakery cake.

I can’t even tell you how much fun we had at the 99 Cents Only Store. We found a large variety of Easter treats and tons of cute decorations. But since this shopping trip was specifically for an Easter basket cake, I tried my hardest to stay focused because I have a tendency to get easily distracted by all the great valued items throughout the store. Okay, I failed at staying focused. A few giant plastic Easter eggs made it into my shopping cart along with drinks, fresh fruits, snacks (I found Annie’s snacks!), and school supplies for the kids. But hey, it’s hard to pass up so many good deals, right?

Here is a picture of my 99 Cents Only Stores haul. I may have gone a little overboard. I didn’t use everything in the picture to create the Bunny and Friends Easter Basket Cake, but trust me, none of this will go to waste. I’ll be using the leftover goodies in other fun Easter desserts too.

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Bunny and Friends Easter Basket Cake

The total amount spent to create this custom cake was $14, which is awesome when compared to a the $35 to $50 cost of a custom cake from our local bakery.

99 Cents Only Stores Shopping List (click on image for the shopping printable):

Other items I had on-hand and used – scissors, pen/pencil, two round cake pans, sugar, water, and food coloring (optional).

Frosting the Easter Basket Cake:

First, start by baking the cake by following the directions on the box. I used two of my own 8″ round cake pans to bake two round cakes. Let the cakes cool completely. Then place the cakes in the freezer for 30 minutes to firm it up and make it easier to frost. Frost the top of the first cake, stack the second cake on top, and frost the entire cake. Don’t worry about a nice frosting job, as everything will be covered with sweet decorations.

Decorating the Easter Basket Cake:

Once the cake is covered in frosting, line the outside of the cake with chocolate wafers. I used about 1 1/2 packages of chocolate wafers.

Tip: This cake has to be served right away because the wafers tend to soften quickly. If you need to make this ahead of time, substitute the wafers with Kit Kat bars, bunny Peeps, or leave it plain.

To create ‘grass’ for the top of the Easter basket cake, I added green food coloring, 2 T. of sugar, and 2T. of water to 1 1/4 cup of coconut flakes. You can also skip the food coloring and just add in the sugar and water to moisten and sweeten the coconut flakes.

Tip: If you don’t like coconut, fill the top with jelly beans, other candy pieces, or leave it plain.

Now it’s time to add bunny and friends! First, I cut off about 1″ of the plastic kabob stick and added the giant marshmallow bunny onto the cake. For the small friends, remove the marshmallow or jelly friends you don’t need, cut off portions of the kabob stick you don’t need, and place onto the cake. Then sprinkle jelly beans and gum eggs all over the top. I did change up the arrangement a bit, but the picture above gives you a general idea the bunny and friends arrangement.

Tip: Clean the plastic kabob sticks with soap/water before inserting into the cake. Use a serrated knife to cut the plastic kabob sticks when needed.

Creating the Easter Basket Cake handles:

To create the Easter Basket Cake handle, I cut a 1 1/2″ x 25″ long strip down the length of a poster board. Since the ribbon was wider than the strip, I folded the edges in and used tape to secure to the poster board.

Tip: You can use foil folded over itself multiple times to create the handle and cover it in ribbon. I used poster board because my daughter needed a portion of it for a class project and I used the remaining portion for the handle.

Fold the remaining ribbon on the spool in half and tie around the wafers. This will help stabilize the wafers and hold them together when pushing in the ribbon basket handle. Now push in the handles between the cake and wafers, about an inch down.

Here is the final Bunny and Friends Basket Cake arrangement. I added a plastic bunny carrot and removed the green bug friend to add in the jelly chick.

It was so much fun creating this Bunny and Friends Easter Basket cake that my daughter wanted to create her own Easter cake too. This is her cake with a duck swimming in a jelly bean pond and a bug king walking down a pink wafer path. Cute, right?!

Really, the decorating possibilities are endless. The key is to have fun and let your imagination run wild. Now, head to your local 99 Cents Only Stores and create your own Bunny and Friends Easter Basket Cake!

How will you be #DoingThe99 this Easter?

Find more 99 Cents Only inspiration and party ideas by watching this video. Connect on social media and become a 99’er by following along on the 99 social media.

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