This time of year, while other families are shopping for Easter outfits or coloring eggs, my crazy relatives are plotting and planning, taunting and teasing. We are deep in battle, or rather batter, of the dreaded Bunny Cake Bake-Off.
Since my family is spread all over the country, a far-off cousin decided we needed a way to be together on Easter without being together. So the Bunny Cake Bake-Off was declared.
This annual event is not just a frivolous cake contest, but a highly competitive bake-off with explicit rules that contestants have to follow or risk the humiliation of disqualification.
Believe me, I know.
You can only use one cake mix, everything in it and on it must be edible, and there is a template that suggests how to cut the cake to create a tie, ears and face. Don’t even think about repeating a cake from prior years or having a cake professionally made. That will get you disqualified, too.
Been there, done that.
Each bunny is then given a name that defines the story behind all the icing. Finally, each contest submission is posted on social media and the public votes for a cake they will never taste.
A winner based solely on beauty.
My art skills pretty much match my baking skills; so even though I never win, I want to win! Each and every week before Easter, I find myself up to my elbows in frosting even though I know I will never win the coveted trophy we call “The Golden Bunny,” (which is basically an after-Easter clearance decoration spray-painted gold).
Who doesn’t want to win that?
So every year I keep trying. One time I made “Playboy Bunny,” which didn’t appear too playful. The next year, I planned a skeleton bunny. When the icing was too thin, the cake started to crumble and the red icing literally bled into the white. I quickly changed my plan and ran the lawnmower tire over that waskley wabbit’s face and called it “Roadkill Bunny.”
Don’t judge me … again.
The year that Hollywood adapted the “no make-up” look, my bunny cake embraced the look, too. I designed an un-iced, plain cake with eyes and whiskers made out of licorice whips. “Natural Bunny” was the cake’s name, which I thought was genius.
Voters, however, did not agree.
Since this is a highly competitive bake-off with crazy creative people, I have learned to try to win voters by being clever instead of being a stellar cake baker or a show-off artist. As a result, many of my submissions will go down in Bunny Bake-Off history. Like my “Rocky Mountain High Bunny” who appeared a bit red-eyed and dangled a smoke made out of oregano from his icing mouth.
Now that was pretty clever.
Still, I never win. No one ever votes for the sad bunny with the catchy name. It’s always a cake like Spiderman Bunny, Trump Bunny or Jack Sparrow Bunny that wins that golden trophy. The artistic weirdos in my family spend hours creating cakes that make a political statement, a bunny that reminds us of a social trend or a cake that is an exaggerated portrait of someone famous.
These cakes are so beautiful that the damaged ones, the ones that try the hardest, are never chosen. This Bunny Cake Bake-Off is serious business.
Every year I hold my breath hoping my family will forget. Every spring, I think that no one will mention bunny cakes and the bake-off will simply go away. Until that glorious day, I plot and plan like the rest of us, trying to create a magical cake with a clever name that makes you slam that “like” button.
Doesn’t the under-bunny ever win?
Instead, voters want bunnies with pretty faces created with perfect fondant. No one seems to realize that the broken bunny, the cake with all the imperfections, is glued together with buttercream frosting, sprinkles and hope.
Beautiful on the inside.
You can reach Lorry at Lorrysstorys@gmail.com.
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