Pumpkin shaped cake with buttercream frosting and fondant accents.

Pumpkin shaped cake with buttercream frosting and fondant accents.

I’m primarily a buttercream broad, but when I was designing the Dr. Horrible Party Cakes, I knew I was going to be using a lot of fondant.

I decided a pumpkin-shaped cake would be an excellent place to experiment with shaping fondant — it’s easy enough to make a lovely pumpkin cake with just buttercream frosting, but fondant is a great way to add some pumpkin leaves and curly vine details.

If I had it all to do over again, I would have rolled the fondant quite a bit thinner and I would have added some painted details to the leaves with liquid food coloring (a process I used a lot on the goggles cake).

But for a primarily buttercream broad, I was pretty satisfied with the pumpkin’s fondant accents.

Pumpkin Shaped Cake Supplies

• Enough batter for three cakes (3 standard box mixes)
• Buttercream Frosting (enough for approximately 3 cakes)
• Fondant
• Wilton’s Gel Food Coloring: Green, Orange, Yellow, Royal Blue (the Yellow and Royal Blue are optional colors)
• Pumpkin Leaf Pattern
• Toothpicks
• Specialty Pans: Bundt Pan

Using the bundt pan in ways it was not intended.

The foundation of the pumpkin-shaped cake is almost always the bundt pan. The contemporary bundt pan was originally designed for baking “bundkuchen”, a type of German coffee cake. Today the bundt pan is used for baking just about any type of cake — even pumpkin.

For the pumpkin cake, bake two bundt cakes. The size of your bundt pan will determine just how much batter is needed, but for the average pan, one box mix will do. Bake time will be considerably longer than when baking two layers from one box — close to twice as long, but start checking the cake early and make sure not to over-bake.

When I started this cake, I thought two bundt cakes were the answer for the perfect pumpkin shape.

I was wrong.

In order to keep the cake from collapsing, I knew I was going to use this stacking method and when I put the cake together, well… just look at the pics:

Looking for the perfect pumpkin cake shape.

The first picture is of two bundt cakes stacked on top of each other. I like the curved edges on the top and on the bottom, but the curves in the middle are not making me happy.

So I leveled off what would traditionally be the “bottom” of each bundt cake and put the cake back together — and that’s the second image.

I now had a more traditional pumpkin-shaped cake — a very short, kind of flat, pumpkin-shaped cake.

And this is when the third box mix comes into play. I baked two 9″ layers (the size should match the size of your bundt pan). One would be used for the stem of the pumpkin and one would be the middle layer of the pumpkin cake — and that’s the third picture.

Now that I had a shape I was happy with, it was time for the frosting.

Tip: I use disposable chopsticks as my primary source of “dowels” for stacking cakes — not your good chopsticks, but those cheapo break apart ones that always accompany takeout and splinter your lips.

Smooth buttercream frosting.

If you squeeze one batch of buttercream frosting, you can frost this entire cake, but if you apply frosting with a pastry bag and frosting tip (which tends to put the frosting on thicker), you might need 1.5 batches.

Before you add the orange coloring, set aside 1/2 cup of frosting (this will be the frosting for the stem).

I colored the frosting with Wilton’s Orange gel coloring, but because I wanted a more natural orange (and not cartoon orange), I added a tiny amount of Royal Blue. This just dulls down the orange and is a completely optional step. Once the cake is frosted, use the paper towel method to smooth the frosting.

Making grooved on side of the pumpkin cake.

Allow the smoothed frosting to “rest” for 10-15 minutes.

Place a paper towel on the frosting and gently drag the back of your finger along the cake to make the grooves of the pumpkin.

Stem made from cut out cakes circles.

Using a cookie/fondant cutter, cut circles of cake from the second 9″ layer of cake. Stack those layers (you’ll likely need to use toothpicks to stabilize the stack) and carve to your satisfaction. Make sure you don’t carve the stack so skinny that it will fall through the hole in the center of the top bundt cake.

Get the frosting you set aside earlier and color with Wilton Gel coloring (I used Kelly green). Frost the stem and then place the stem in the center of the cake — use toothpicks to hold the stem in place. Drag the tines of a standard dinner fork through the frosting to make it rough.

Pumpkin shaped cake with all buttercream frosting.

For you buttercream freaks, your work here is done! If you want some fondant extras, continue reading.

Download the pumpkin leaf pattern PDF

If you’re new to fondant, you can either purchase “rolled fondant” (ready-to-use) or make Pix’s Marshmallow fondant. They’re similar to work with, but Pix’s is reportedly yummy. Most ready-to-use fondant is… an acquired taste.

I say Pix’s is “reportedly yummy” because I’m a fondant weenie and I bought ready-to-use.

Once you have the fondant of your choice, color it green with Wilton’s Gel Coloring (check Pix’s tutorial on Coloring Fondant).

But before you do all that, download this pattern and cut out the leaf patterns.

Cutting fondant leaves.

Use the downloaded leaf patterns to create the green fondant leaves.

Fondant leaves draped over plastic containers.

To give the fondant leaves some interest, drape them over small plastic containers or bowls or whatever else you have in the kitchen that seems suitable. I used a mixture of plastic containers and chopsticks.

Fondant snakes wrapped around chopsticks.

For the pumpkin vines, roll out some snakes of fondant. I wanted some variety, so I added some Golden Yellow in varying amounts to little bits of the already green fondant. Once you have the snakes, wrap them around chopsticks, lolly sticks, or the round handle of a wooden spoon. Allow the fondant to dry for approximately 30 minutes.

Vine curls removed from chopsticks and shaped.

Once the vines have dried (but aren’t completely hardened), slide them off the chopsticks and stretch them out. You can also “bend” them so that they will fall more gracefully along the sides of the pumpkin. Allow the fondant to harden fully. If you try to drape the curls on the pumpkin too soon, the weight of the dangling fondant will stretch out the curls completely and/or cause the curls to break.

Pumpkin shaped cake with buttercream frosting and fondant accents.

Once all of your fondant pieces have dried, attach them to the cake. For the curls, I just stuck one end in the buttercream. For the leaves, I just placed them on the pumpkin and allowed them to rest naturally against the stem and sides of the pumpkin.

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Log with branch

Take store bought log cake (could use a jellyroll or chocolate like I have here) roll over and slice off about 1/6th of the bottom.

Cut bottom of cake

Cut this piece in half vertically and place on top of each other to form another branch.

Place slice to make branch

Cut a slight diagonal off one end of the branch so it fits snug against the branch and juts out like a branch

Cut a slight diagonal off one end of the log

Chocolate buttercream icing recipe

60 grams of butter at room temperature
1 tbls of milk
1 ¼ cups of chocolate icing sugar (powdered sugar)-sifted

Here in Australia this comes already mixed. If you need to make it up yourself try using 1 cup icing sugar (powdered sugar) and ¼ cup of cocoa –sifted together

Either place all ingredients in a food processor and blend until combined and fluffy, or beat with a wooden spoon to combine then finish with electric whisk.

A more luxury version of buttercream frosting can be found here but use perhaps only half the recipe

Cover with chocolate buttercream icing.

Add chocolate buttercream

Use a nice thick coating

Use a fork to mark out bark like lines on the cake.

Use fork to make bark marks

Birds nest

Melt chocolate in a bowl and break into it “Shredded wheat” type cereal and mix together well.

Shredded wheat cereal

You can use cocoa pops , rice crispies/bubbles etc or other cereal.  I just use shredded wheat because it looks more like twigs.

Grease the inside of a ramekin, bowl or mug and form a nest shape in the base. Make sure the base is nice and thick.

Form nest in dish or ramekin

Then put it in the freezer for 10 minutes to speedily set.

Remove nest from container (you may need to stand the container in warm water for 20-30 seconds to help loosen it and perhaps run a knife along the top)

Place the nest in between both branches. I raised mine a little by using the thin wedge I had sliced of in the beginning underneath.

Place nest in between branches

Add candy and/or chocolate eggs to the nest.

Place eggs in nest

The finished Easter cake-log with nest

Of course this cake was put together with speed in mind and it’s totally up to you how much time you would like to put into the decorations.

As suggestions you could add alcohol or flavouring to the cake and/or the icing. Sprinkle some coconut coloured with green food colouring around the base of the cake. Add flowers.

There we have the easy, very fast Easter cake (or spring cake )in around half an hour.

The birds nests we made make fantastic Easter gifts. Make in muffin or fairycake (cupcake) cases. Add a chick and break open one of the eggs.  Great fun for kid’s and incredibly easy.

The nest makes a great cake on it's own

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Easter Bunny Cake

There’s the super easy Classic Bunny Rabbit Cake and then there’s this “a little bit more work, but isn’t he a charmer?” Easter Bunny Cake.

You can tell he’s an Easter Bunny because he’s so darn colorful — of course, if you prefer another color (even something bizarre like “brown” or “white”), all you have to do is select the appropriate color frosting. He doesn’t even have to be an Easter Bunny Cake, he’s equally happy to serve as the “pet rabbit cake.” Although, you might want to skip the bow tie — as pet rabbit cakes don’t usually enjoy dress up as much as Easter Bunny cakes.

Download the Bunny Rabbit Pattern

Creating the Bunny Rabbit Cake

1. Whip up your favorite cake batter (I made this white cake) and evenly divide the batter between one 9″ square cake pan and one 9″ round cake pan. Bake and cool cakes as your recipe requires. Remove cakes from pans.
2. Download the Bunny Rabbit Cake Pattern (the pattern is a .PDF file which requires the free Adobe Acrobat Reader). Print out and cut out each pattern piece.
3. Place the cut out pattern pieces on top of the 9″ square layer. Use a sharp knife to cut out the cake pieces.

   NOTE: The small piece marked “hair” is a fussy bit. I love the rakish charm it adds to the rabbit cake, but if you’re short on time or don’t like fiddly bits, you can omit this piece and still have a wonderful bunny rabbit cake.

4. Frost the round cake with frosting of your choice (I used the Butteriest Buttercream Frosting) tinted in the color of your choice.
5. Frost the hair, ears, and body pieces. Do not frost the edges that will be placed against the round (already frosted).
6. Place the hair, ears, and body pieces in position with the head. Add frosting to mask where parts are joined to the round.
7. Smooth the buttercream frosting by using the “paper towel” method demonstrated in this video.
8. Decorate with your choice of candies, different colored frostings, or, as I did, you can make pressed sugar decorations.

Now enjoy your utterly charming rabbit cake which can grace your bunny rabbit party or your Easter egg hunting party.

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Classic Bunny Rabbit Cake

Here we have the classic bunny rabbit cake that Grandma first whipped up a long time ago — and even more Grandmas got into the act in 1973 with a copy of the Baker’s Coconut Cut Up Cakes (see the second “Easter Bunny Cake”).

Classic Bunny Rabbit Cutting Pattern

It’s a fabulous cake for anyone who loves cake-retro or who wants an easy and extremely forgiving (coconut covers a multitude of sins) bunny rabbit cake.

The instructions are super simple:

1. Bake any cake recipe in two round pans.
2. Cut one cake round as shown in the diagram to the right. Leave second cake round whole.
3. Place two “A” pieces (see diagram) as the bunny rabbit’s ears and place the “B” piece as the bunny rabbit’s smart and fancy bow tie.
4. Frost entire cake. You may frost the bow tie in a contrasting color.
5. Sprinkle coconut over rabbit.
6. Use decorator tubes, colored candies, or pressed sugar decorations to create the bunny rabbit’s face.

I told you it was simple. He’s the perfect cake for anyone who loves bunny rabbits or as the featured guest at this year’s Easter Egg Hunt.

Easter Bunny Cake

Another Easter Bunny Cake

And if you’d like a slightly more difficult and contemporary cake, check out this Easter Bunny Cake.

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