Pink Ombre Bunny Birthday Cake

Every year for my birthday my mom makes me a boxed cake mix bunny cake. (She can make great cakes from scratch, don't get me wrong, but I like boxed cake one day a year.) The deal is--or at least has been since I was 8ish--that she makes the bunny cake and I decorate it. When I was younger I made tie dye one and pink ones and really whatever I wanted. The last bunch of years though, I've been on a "I should make this resemble a bunny" kick. This culminated in last year's coconut bunny cake. I didn't think I could top the bunny-ness of that one, so this year I decided to go for something a bit less bunny and a bit more fun: pink ombré.

Generally I not inclined to jump in on the ombré trend. Don't get me wrong, that whole fading color look is very pretty much of the time. But it's over-used of late and it really isn't that exciting. Of course, I was very busy this year (what with grad school, my trip to Paris, and a lovely birthday afternoon tea) and I decided that ombré would be easier than bunches of different colors.

In fact, since I was using a star tip to cover it (as oppose to trying to do something fancier), it was absurdly easy. The trick is to dye a small but reasonable amount of white buttercream the darkest shade you'll want, use some of it and then mix some white buttercream in to bulk your supply of icing back up and lighten the color. Use some of that color and reserve some. Mix white buttercream in with that reserve and repeat until you have as many shades as you want. (By the way if you aren't using it right away, but instead want to have all the colors made in advance you can just put aside what I say to use--the only benefit of using it before mixing the next lightest color is that you have fewer bowls to clean at the end.)

So that's it for the decorations. Inside, like I said above, it's a boxed cake mix. I usually ask for white cake (since I typically make a chocolate cake for myself.) But this year I switched things up and went for funfetti cake mix! You've got to love the fluffy, sweet white cake dotted with colorful confetti. Seriously, I don't know why this is the first year I asked for it.

This year, I didn't make that second cake because Passover is looming and I shouldn't have cake in the house (I'm not terribly observent and if there is cake in the house I'll eat it, but I do want to try to be good this year. In that vein, I'm making a chocolate cake for Passover dinner with the family--you can see the practice cakes I made before I went to Paris--so stay tuned!