Pound Cake – but let’s make individual bunny shaped cakes!
A slice or two of Pound Cake is a lovely thing to enjoy, with a cup of tea or just on its own. Let’s make it individual and seasonal by making the cake into little bunny shapes. I made these little guys from my normal pound cake recipe and added a lemon glaze and little pink ears and noses. Individual pound cakes for everyone!
Bunnies for Spring
When I’m using a fancy shaped pan like the bunny one, I always use a ‘pan lube’ instead of any other method of preparing the pan. The recipe for the pan lube is here, doesn’t sound particularly lovely, but it truly works. This stuff keeps for a very long time unrefrigerated and is easy to use. Just brush it on with a pastry brush, making sure to get into all of those little shapes that make these pans so nice to use.
Prepping shaped cake pans is essential!
Pan Lube 
Brush each pan cavity 
Even distribution of batter
If you prefer not to make the pan lube, make sure you use a spray that has the oil and flour incorporated. My experience with traditional methods of oiling/buttering and then sprinkling flour is that you will get clumps no matter how careful you are. This impacts the finish on the cake and you’ll have little unattractive craters on your cake surface. Typically when making a cake that has a lot of detail due to the pan, you’re not going to put frosting or much of any kind of decoration, so the surface should look nice.
When using a multi-cavity pan, it’s important to be consistent in filling each one. I use an ice cream scoop (disher) to portion out the batter. All the individual cakes need to bake at the same time to the same doneness.
Make sure to use a cake tester – either a metal one or just a skewer – to test to see if they are fully baked. There should be no wet batter on the tester, a couple of crumbs are fine, but not wet. Put the tester right into the middle of the cake.
Bunny heads 
Well baked baby bunnies! 
Cooling the bunnies on a rack
Cool and glaze your individual pound cakes
My bunnies came out beautifully smooth using the the pan lube. When I brushed on the lemon glaze it gave them a lovely, ever so slightly crunchy coating. The glaze is not necessary, but it’s a very nice added touch. It also allowed me to paint on a little thickened glaze that I’d added pink food colouring to, for the ears and noses. The glaze is just one cup of icing sugar and a tablespoon of milk or water and lemon extract or juice. Make is runny enough to spread on the bunnies with a pastry brush.
The recipe has all the directions on making the cake, including smoothing the batter once it’s in the pan. What I didn’t mention was that after the bunnies were cooled, I took a sharp paring knife and cut off the ‘hump’ that was on the bottom of the bunny shape. This let’s them sit nice and flat on the plate.
If you’re doing this recipe in a loaf pan, it will peak in the centre of the top… don’t trim that off, that’s the signature of a pound cake. Just gives it a little extra way to absorb any glaze that you’ll pour on top.
Pound Cake
A vanilla Pound Cake made as a loaf or as individual 'cakelets'
Ingredients
- 227g (1 cup) butter
- 330g (1 1/2 cups) white sugar
- 5 Eggs
- 2ml (1/2 teaspoon) salt
- 220g (2 cups) Cake and Pastry flour
- 15ml (1 tablespoon) vanilla extract
- 30ml (2 tablespoons) milk
Instructions
If you are making as a loaf cake, prepare a 9x5 inch (2L) loaf pan by lining with parchment paper.
If you are making 'cakelets' in a shaped pan, thoroughly brush all pan cavities with cake lube or spray with a baker's cake pan spray (one that has oil and flour in it).
- Set the oven to 325F (160C)
- Cream the butter - beat until light and fluffy. It should get lighter in colour. Gradually beat in the sugar until it is all combined.
- Beat in the eggs, one at a time. Beat each addition for a least one minute. Eggs create the lift in this cake, don't skimp on this time.
- Beat in the milk, salt and vanilla extract.
- Stir in the flour - you want to make sure there are no streaks of flour left visible in the batter. Remove from the mixer and use a silicone spatula to finish mixing by hand.
- Scoop into your prepared pan, smoothing the top of the batter with a small spatula.
- Bake in the centre of the oven. The loaf cake may take up to 75 minutes to bake, the cakelets could be finished in 25 minutes. Test for doneness by inserted a cake tester in the centre - it should come out clean.
- Let the cakes cool in the pan for 20-30 minutes. Turn out and set right side up onto a cooling rack, (you don't want impressions from the cooling rack on the top of your cake). Let cool completely.
- Once cool, cakes can be wrapped in plastic wrap, they'll stay nice for around two days. These freeze nicely for a couple of weeks.
- For extra flavour, consider drizzling a lemon glaze over the cakes and letting that dry before serving.
Notes
My recipes are all created using metric weight measurements. Conversion to spoons and cups are approximate.
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