Create This DIY Easter Basket Cake

Instead of a store bought Easter basket this year why not make a sweet edible version? You can create this DIY Easter basket cake put your Easter goodies on for Easter morning, or serve it up to your friends and family. An Easter basket cake can do double duty at your Easter table. It would make a spectacular table centerpiece and have you covered for dessert.

Don’t let the idea of making a basket weave on a cake scare you. One of my favorite cake decorating techniques is the basket weave, it’s really not as hard as it looks, once you get the hang of it, you just repeat the same pattern over and over. The finished look is amazing.

DIY Easter Basket Cake

Materials:

Your favorite cake mix, or recipe baked into 2- 8 to 9 inch round cakes
Your favorite decorator icing
Pink food coloring (or any color you want to make your basket)
Green food coloring
Shredded coconut
Molded chocolate eggs or Easter candy to place on your cake
Clean piece of thin wire about 14-16 inches long
Fondant or gum paste (pink or tint pink)
Star cake decorating tip
Basket weave decorating tip
Cake board

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. Once you’ve tinted the fondant to the color you want your basket cake to be, roll it into a thin strip about 14-16 inches long (depending on how tall you want to make the handle).

Form the fondant around the wire. 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 since the wire is not edible.

2. Use a serrated knife to level off the tops of your cakes. When a cake bakes it’s usually higher in the center, cut the top off so it’s level across to give your cake basket an even appearance.

3. Put a dollop of icing on a round cardboard cake board (you can wrap the board with foil before placing the cake on top). Carefully place one of the cakes in the center of the cake board over a dollop of icing to hold it in place.

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

5. Ice the whole cake with a thin layer of icing in whatever color you’ve chosen to make your basket. Once you have the cake iced set it aside for an hour or so to let the icing dry.

6. To make the basket weave on the side, start 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.

7. Once you have one vertical stripe down the side (see photo). Then 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 put a row between later. 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.

The pattern is a little difficult to get started, but once you have it started, keep repeating the process until you’ve gone all the way around the cake.

8. Finish off the top and bottom with a border around the edge. You can use any border you like. I used a rope edging using a star decorator tip. To make a rope edging, pipe icing into an “s” shape (about 1” long).

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.

9. Place chocolate eggs, or other candies on the top of the cake in the “basket.”