What's up, Doc?

I'm sure, hidden somewhere deep in your childhood memories you've filed away, you'd recall watching Saturday morning cartoons in your pyjamas, eating way too much cereal, just to get to the toy that was lurking somewhere in the packet! Of course for Husband, these are memories from last week.

As per usual, any morning in our house when the TV goes on is a great morning in the eyes of my kids (probably because it's so rare), but there's something special about weekend TV. Perhaps it's because I allow them to bring their quilts out of their rooms, and snuggle up on the couch. Occasionally Husband will conspire with them to sneak the dogs under the blankets in hopes I won't notice, or assume the cushions have mysteriously grown paws and move around by their own free will.

Recently on TV (not just on Saturday morning), there's been various Looney Tunes shows & movies airing, which have brought back those memories for me. My kids look at me with puzzled expressions when I say that when I was their age, I used to watch these shows, too! Especially Looney Tunes.

There's been a few cartoon rabbits during my lifetime that I remember. Bugs Bunny being an obvious one, then Roger Rabbit. In recent times, Boingo from Hoodwinked joined this list...

Over the weekend, I made a rabbit cake. When I was asked if I could make one, my mind immediately went into cartoon bunny mode. And, without thinking much about it, I automatically assumed a white bunny with pink on it's ears! This happened before finding a picture of Roger Rabbit, by the way!

The cake was to be for the same girl I had made the lady beetle cake for, and so somehow, I wanted to use the same shape. Little did I know, that this would soon become one of the most disproportionate rabbit cakes in the history of all rabbit cakes!

It was all going well, until I ran out of one of the most important ingredients needed when baking a cake: tin release. It is the most amazing thing on the planet when it comes to baking, and ensuring that cakes don't stick to their pans! Luckily, I had enough for the main part of the cake (made from a soccer ball tin), but I needed a new solution for how to make the head. I considered moulding marshmallows together, but ended up creating what I can only describe as a giant cake pop for the head.

Tiny head, massive body. This rabbit is either pregnant, or has eaten too much cake!

The scene and standard were set, so basically, I had to continue making things out of proportion, so that it all matched... Which is why the front paws are also very tiny!

Without a clue as to how I was going to manage the back legs, I decided that perhaps I could just paint them on?

Knowing that this was planned to look like a cartoon bunny, I wasn't sure how to make the eyes. Do I make them really big, to match the body?? Or should they be small, to match the rest of it?? I started by painting two circles, and adding the nose and mouth. I needed to wait until the morning (when the ears went in) to decide how big to make the eyes. But slowly, the cake was at least taking the appearance of a bunny, I thought!

Thankfully, it wasn't too late in the evening when I had the great thought of making one of the ears "floppy"! I'd already cut out two ears from a stencil (traced onto baking paper straight from the computer), so quickly cut out another and folded the top of the ear over slightly, bending it over some glad wrap to set in place overnight.

While giggling over the ridiculously disproportionate looking cake I had, I'd also made some flowers to set overnight in a cake-pop tray, to fill in the space around the bunny on the cake board.

Morning came, and it was time to get serious with the bunny details! First, I put the flowers around the bunny, to make sure they looked alright.

I added some whiskers...

But, it didn't really look "right" (well, as right as it could possibly look!) until the ears were added!

Once the ears were in, I didn't think I needed to make the eyes bigger after all, so basically the cake was now complete!

Here's what it looked like from other angles, and above:

Though I spent more time giggling over the cake than decorating it, I was fairly happy with it in the end. Part of me wonders if the disproportionate cake somehow relates to an imbalance I have in my own life... Or, perhaps I just also eat too much cake?

Because I'm definitely not pregnant!

Happy birthday Maya!!