Monkey Cake

My friend was having a baby shower and I offered to make the cake.  I asked her what kind of cake she wanted, thinking flavor wise, and she told me she wanted monkeys and did not care what the flavor was.  So of course I had to make a banana cake (recipe here: http://missyscakesandaprons.blogspot.com/2011/03/delicious-banana-layer-cake.html )  I doubled the recipe which called for 3 total cups of sugar, but I only had 2 cups of palm sugar left.  With the sweet icing it tasted just fine though.  Banana cake was firm enough to hold up in a 3-D pan.  I also made peanut butter cream cheese frosting (you can find the recipe here:  http://missyscakesandaprons.blogspot.com/2011/08/peanut-butter-icing.html )  It really needed more powdered sugar, but I had also run out of thot not sugar.  This is why I need plenty of warning when people ask me to bake cakes.  My husband and I only have one car and he works 30 minutes away.  We have to go to either Ft Worth or Arlington to get palm sugar and my husband hates driving that far after working all day.

I used my Stand up Wilton bear pan.  Isn't he cute?  You can find the baking and decorating directions at Wilton.com .  I cut off his ears and trimmed his legs.  Then I covered the 8 inch leftover cake with frosting.

I did not have any sugar left to make white buttercream so I was not able to make any extra decorations.  I would have loved for the monkey to be holding a baby bottle or something, oh well!
I did put some frosting inside the bear before I put the middle of the cake from the heating element back inside to give the monkey more frosting.

I made a tail, ears, and legs from rice krispie treats.  The tail did fall down, but still looked okay. 

I started off with one toothpick, but next ended up adding more toothpicks later when they started to fall.  So I would put 1 toothpick on each end, and then after sticking them in the cake, add a toothpick from the front and one from the back where they "crisscross", this will help them to stay put.  I knew I was cutting the cake and could pull out all the toothpicks.  These are the ears!  Be sure to put the ears on the side of his face to look like a monkey.

I then added the legs.  I used a tip 16 and made stars all over the monkey.  When I made the belly, inside the ears, and face the frosting did not firm up enough for me to smooth over with my finger like buttercream does.  I had used a tip 12 to put the "light colored" frosting on.  Oh well, I ended up using my tiny spatula to smooth it the best I could.

Here is his backside, I was told the tail looked like a turkey neck when I pulled it off!  LOL

The funniest part of the cake was when I started cutting it.  I had put a dowel rod down the middle of the cake and another smaller one in his belly to keep him upright and from sliding.  I first cut off his head to lay on the side and start cutting.  Of course all the little girls were standing around me, watching.  When I did this the dowel rod was sticking out of his neck and one of the little girls from my Sunday School class said "His skeleton is sticking out!"  So I looked at her and said "of course he has a skeleton, he would fall over if he didn't have something holding him up just like you do!"  :)
The frosting was soft and held up pretty good in the 110° weather we have been having, but his hip fell off so I grabbed a couple of bananas and put them on the sides to hide it.  I later stuck a strawberry in front of his foot where it started to fall.  Everyone thought it was just part of his decorations!  LOL
Have a great day ya'll!
Missy