for cake:

1. Preheat oven to 325
2. Cream butter and sugar, add eggs one at a time
3. Combine dry ingredients and add to batter alternating with buttermilk and vanilla
4. Prepare pans by spreading lightly with butter and dusting with dried breadcrumbs
5. Pour batter into the bottom of your two cake pans, assemble according to direction on your lamb cake mold
6. Bake for approximately one hour
7. Cool the cake for 10 minutes, remove from pan
8. Cool to room temp and refrigerate

for frosting:

1. Mix butter, shortening, powdered sugar, vanilla, and just 3 tablespoons of milk, gradually adding more milk until the consistency is similar to light and fluffy mashed potatoes, it should be stiff enough to hold its shape when you pipe it, but soft enough to pipe easily
2. Place about 1/2 cup in a small deep bowl and blend in enough milk to make a thick glaze, the texture should be thicker than heavy cream, kind of like a thin pancake batter
3. Dip the lambs face into the glaze, covering the face and front side of the ears, and allow the glaze to drip off (I occasionally gave it a wipe to help the process)
4. Add a small amount of frosting to the center of your serving platter, place the lamb on top, this will kind of glue it to the plate, I do this with all cakes, but it’s especially helpful with this top-heavy cake
5. Add a star tip to a piping bag and pipe swirls of frosting onto the lamb’s body
6. If desired, use food coloring to tint a small amount of the frosting, literally a tablespoon or two, a light pink or peach color, use this to pipe the inside of the ears and nose
7. Add jelly beans for eyes, I used a plastic straw and pushed it into the cake where I wanted the eyes to be, it gave me an opening to push the jelly beans into
8. Refrigerate until you’re ready to put it on the table