Easter Basket Cake

by Linette Gerlach

Instead of a store bought Easter basket this year why not make a sweet edible version? You can put your Chocolate Easter Eggs and other holiday goodies on an Easter Basket Cake, and serve it up to your friends and family. An Easter Basket Cake even does double duty at your Easter table: it makes a spectacular centerpiece and has you covered for dessert.

Don’t let the idea of making basket weave on a cake scare you! One of my favorite cake decorating techniques is the basket weave because it’s not nearly as hard as it looks and the finished product is really impressive.

Easter Basket Cake

Materials:

• Your favorite cake mix or recipe baked into 2 8” round cakes
• Your favorite decorator icing
• Pink food coloring (or whatever color you want to make your basket)
• Green food coloring
• Shredded coconut
• Chocolate Easter Eggs (instructions here) or other Easter candies
• Clean piece of thin wire between 14” – 16” long
• Fondant or gum paste (pink or tint pink)
• Decorator bag
• Star cake decorating tip
• Basket weave decorating tip
• Round cakeboard
• Aluminum foil

Instructions:

1. A day or two before you’re ready to make your cake, make a handle for your basket out of fondant or gum paste and a piece of wire. Start by tinting your fondant to the color you want. See here for tips on how to tint fondant

2. Once you’ve tinted the fondant to the right color, roll it into a thin strip about 14-16 inches long (depending on how tall you want to make handle). Form the fondant around the wire

3. Place the handle over a bowl and set it aside to dry for a day or two

NOTE: Make sure you remove the handle before you serve the cake to guests, because the wire is not edible.

4. Use a serrated knife to level off the tops of your 8” round cakes; when a cake bakes it typically rises higher in the center—cut the top off so it’s level across to give your cake basket an even appearance

5. Wrap your round cakeboard with aluminum foil

6. Use the food coloring to tint your icing to the color you want your cake basket to be

7. Once it’s colored, put a small dollop of icing on the center of the cardboard cake board

8. Carefully place one of the cakes in the center of the cake board over the dollop of icing to hold it in place

9. Spread a layer of icing evenly on the top of cake, and carefully place the second cake on top to make two layers

10. Ice the whole cake with a thin layer of icing

11. Once the is cake iced, set it aside for an hour or so to let the icing dry

12. When the icing is dry, it’s time to make the basket weave. Fill a decorator bag with your icing and use the basket weave decorator tip. Start decorating by putting one strip down the side of the cake. You can use a star tip or a flat sided tip for your weave. Different tips will give your weave a different look, but many will work

13. Once you have one vertical stripe down the side, pipe several short horizontal lines going across the vertical stripe and continuing on for about an inch on the other side. Leave room between each horizontal stripe about the width of the decorator tip so you can insert a row between later

14. Make another vertical stripe down the cake going just over the ends of the horizontal stripes you just made. Repeat the horizontal stripes, but bury the beginning of the next set of horizontal lines under the first vertical line, in the spaces you left between your first set of horizontal lines, so it looks like the weave is coming out from underneath

15. Keep repeating the process until you’ve gone all the way around the cake
 

16. Finish off the top and bottom with a border around the edge. You can use any border you like. In the photos, I used a rope edging using a star decorator tip. To make a rope edging, pipe icing into an “s” shape (about 1” long). Then start another “s” shape by tucking the tip under the bottom curve of the “s” you just finished, then form another “s” by going over the tail of the “s” you just made. Repeat the pattern all the way around the top edge of the cake, and the bottom edge. You can also make a scalloped or star edge, whatever you prefer
 

17. Place your Chocolate Easter Eggs or other candies on the top of the cake in the “basket”

18. Color your shredded coconut with green food coloring


19. Sprinkle the colored coconut around the Chocolate Easter Eggs or candies on the top of the cake to look like Easter grass

20. Insert the basket handle into the top of the cake, and you’re ready to add it to your Easter table!