Well it’s 10pm again, a day after I was supposed to post and I’m only just starting this post! I have no one but myself to blame (and maybe work – I need to figure out how to not feel guilty about logging off). (No thanks to work) we had a great Easter! The Easter bunny hid lots of eggs for the kiddos, and even found out how to get inside and hide some surprises in their easter baskets. Patricia and Julius were both very excited about the egg hunt this year except Patricia wanted to open the eggs as she went, and we had to dissuade that. This year the Easter bunny decided to put money in the eggs because Julius has been very interested in filling his piggy bank with coins lately. The bunny hid just a handful of quarters and a single dollar. Patricia won the dollar and shouted “I got money!” when she opened it.
Patricia was very excited about all the easter themed “peeps” decorations. You probably know I have a giant bunny peep that the kids love to lay on. (Patricia calls peepa which is pretty cute.) In addition to the giant peep I have some little peeps that I keep in a basket on the dining room table. Well they started out on the dining room table but Patricia immediately claimed them as her own and started carrying them around everywhere. There is a larger one that she calls the “mama” peep and she calls two of the smaller ones Patricia and Julius peeps and she has told me there is no dada peep.
Ka just so happened to have sent me a giant peep 3d cake pan set that we were looking at online. It was incredibly hard to find and I don’t know why because it WORKS SO WELL. They tell you to use some kind of pound-cake like cake using boxed cake mix, but I said screw it I’m making a carrot cake, just to make the maiden voyage of this thing a real challenge. That said the cake part was the easiest part! Frosting was more of a challenge (especially since I was trying to convince the kids not to touch it while I was making it.) If you find one of these pans I’ve got the instructions written down below (plus Ka told me I’ll need to make 10 more of these cakes to make the pan worth it so I will have to remember how I did it). Patricia was very excited about the Peep cake and asked if “it has babies?” Which I guess, yes, those little peeps ARE babies!
Check out these adorable bunny napkins!
Table settings for Easter
Look at these two cuties.
Julius insists on never doing a proper smile in family photos anymore.
Mother of all peeps
Mother of all Peeps Carrot Cake
What you’ll need:
- 1 recipe of carrot cake batter from here
- baker’s twine
- 1 recipe of cream cheese frosting also from here
- sanding sugar in color desired (they only had pink)
- 2 chocolate chips
- 350 for an hour and 10 minutes.
- Giant Peeps Pan
Butter and flour the inside of both halves of the cake pan. Place bottom cake pan on top of a small sheet pan.
Follow recipe above to make carrot cake batter and pour into bottom peep pan. (Or you can try 5 cups of pound cake batter). Pour it all the way to the lip of the pan (even just above) and then carefully put the lid on top. (Now you can make cupcakes with the remaining batter.)
Use baker’s twine to tie the peep together as best you can so the batter won’t cause the top to push off while baking.
Bake at 350 F for 50 to 70 minutes (it took me 1 hour 10 minutes I believe for a finished cake, but I checked it with a skewer every 10 minutes starting at 50 minutes. I also gently removed the top and checked it with a skewer then returned the top back on.
When cake is done and the skewer comes out clean, remove from the oven. Then they have a complicated method of cooling it but I followed it exactly… Let it cool for 5 minutes in the pan. Then remove the lid and let it cool for another 5 minutes with the lid off. Replace the lid and flip the pan over. Let it cool again for 5 minutes. Gently remove the lid (this is the bottom now) and let it cool again for 5 minutes. Finally release the peep from the pan and place it on a serving tray and let it cool for 4 hours (I let it cool overnight, uncovered on the counter).
Mix the cream cheese frosting recipe above (I used the lower number for sugar and I already thought it was ridiculously sweet.) Make sure everything is at room temperature (despite what the instructions in the recipe say) because I found it easier to frost this way.
Frost the cake with a layer of cream cheese using an offset spatula. Get it as smooth as you can.
Sprinkle the sanding sugar all over the peep. In this step it was helpful for someone (Will) to rotate the plate around so we could get more sugar on the body of the peep. I also used my hand the gently grab scoops of sugar and press them into the frosting to fill it in better.
When you’re finally satisfied with the sanding sugar, add chocolate chips as eyes.
Cake with the cake pan lid removed.
Cake standing upright on the serving plate.
Frosting the cake.
After I’ve covered it in sanding sugar and added chocolate chip eyes!
Yum it was really tasty. Too tasty!
I can’t believe how well that worked! The peep is adorable!