Basket Weave Easter Cake …… Nailed it?

Posted on April 1, 2018

Well, not really nailed it but I think it was a solid effort. My mother made Easter dinner this year so I decided to make an Easter cake for dessert. Since I had extra time to just focus on the dessert, I decided to practice some new skills. Okay, so that is a lie, I had no time to make this cake. I have a 6 year old and a 4 year old. I did not manage my time. I did not start until Saturday morning. I ran out of ingredients. My husband had to work. We had soccer games, Easter outfit shopping, and two dozen Easter eggs to dye. The dog had surgery. You name it, it was on our to-do list. At 2:30 am Easter morning, I completed the Easter cake and made homemade dinner rolls just in time for the Easter bunny to visit. Whew!!!

Here are a couple of my wins. I tried a new yellow cake recipe from Smitten Kitchen‘s cookbook, Smitten Kitchen Every Day. Just as a side note, I love this cookbook. I have been cooking in this book all month with the Food 52 Cookbook Club, highly recommend it and the club. I think this yellow cake had a delicious, moist flavor. It made a solid cake that was good for construction and decorating. This cake had four layers and each layer was relatively equal. My buttercream layers were evenly distributed, and my cake was not leaning. My cake assembling techniques have definitely improved, and I have a new favorite cake recipe. – Win!

The basket weave is a new technique for me. Disclaimer: not as easy as it looks! I watched You Tube videos to learn the basket weave but I still did not have a clean design. I bought a new basket weave piping tip which I think must have been much smaller in size than the basket weave tips on the videos. My tiny basket weave tip took a long time to complete. I do like this design so I am going to keep practicing this one. – Improvement needed.

The grass is also a new technique. Although not perfect, the grass went much better for me than the basket weave. It was quick and easy. Wilton’s leaf green food gel is perfect for the grass and added a nice pop of color to the cake. It is a good base to the colorful flowers, gold pearls, and golden chocolate eggs.

Here is a note on the color of the basket. I bought a terra cotta food gel specifically for this cake. I felt the color was coming out too pink during mixing. I added a little brown food gel to try to make the color more terra cotta. I thought it was just right until I looked at in the morning light, and it was pink again. The photograph cake shows more of the true color in the light of day, not the light of 2:30 am.

I am still working on my cake decorating skills but I am really enjoying doing it. I don’t even mind working on the cakes in the middle of the night. I could focus without distraction, and I was able to enjoy a little bit of me time.