200+ Coolest Homemade Monkey Birthday Cake Ideas

Take a look at these cool homemade Monkey birthday cake ideas shared with us by cake decorators from around the world. Along with the birthday cakes here, you’ll also find loads DIY birthday cake-making ideas and how-to tips to inspire your next birthday cake project. Enjoy!

And don’t forget… if you end up with a cool cake, have great tips to share or pictures of awesome birthday cakes you’ve made in the past, share them here and be a part of our coolest birthday cake community.

Latest Monkey Cakes

4 Cool DIY Monkey Cakes
My daughter loves monkeys and for her 11th birthday we chose this monkey cake idea. We used the Wilton Animal … Read more
Cool Homemade Monkey Cupcakes
My husband and I decided to do a Curious George theme for our son’s first birthday party. I found the … Read more
12 Cool DIY Monkey Face and 3D Cakes
Since my 2 year old is a little monkey we decided to do a monkey themed party this year. We … Read more
Coolest Kids Tropical Luau Monkey Cake
My husband’s cousin called and asked me to make a kids luau themed monkey cake with palm trees and to … Read more
15+ Cool DIY Monkey Cake Designs for the Birthday Cake Enthusiast
Here are some of the coolest monkey cake designs. Who doesn’t love monkeys? These animals are pure genius. They are known … Read more
Coolest Monkey Birthday Cake
My name is Mae Pope and I made this monkey birthday cake for my niece. I started baking birthday cakes … Read more
Monkey Around Baby Shower Cake
What a fun cake to do!! A friend and coworker had given us wonderful news…she was expecting twins!! Being the … Read more
Just Hanging Around Monkey Cake
This monkey cake was created for a little girl’s 6th birthday. It was a 3 tier butter recipe cake with … Read more
Coolest 3D Buddy the Monkey Cake
I am a home/hobby baker and often get asked to make baby shower cakes and it seems everyone I know … Read more
Cutest Monkey Baby Shower Cake
This cake was made for a friend that was throwing a baby shower. Mom to be wanted a gender neutral … Read more
Marvelous Monkey First Birthday Cake
For my youngest granddaughter’s first birthday her mommy wanted a cake with monkeys. Her room has monkeys and her nick … Read more
Cutest Homemade Monkey Baby Shower Cake
This monkey baby shower cake was created for a friend’s baby shower. She did not find out the sex of … Read more

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Featured Monkey Cakes

15+ Cool DIY Monkey Cake Designs for the Birthday Cake Enthusiast

Here are some of the coolest monkey cake designs. Who doesn’t love monkeys? These animals are pure genius. They are known for their amusing behavior and are also known to play pranks on humans! Whether it’s a birthday or a baby shower, Monkey Cakes are sure to add positive energy to the party. Read more »

4 Cool DIY Monkey Cakes

My daughter loves monkeys and for her 11th birthday we made a monkey cake. We used the Wilton Animal Crackers pan. This pan looks like a bear. We cut the ears off and moved them lower on the side of the face. The rest was pretty simple. Read more »

12 Cool Homemade Monkey Face Cake Ideas

For my son’s first birthday, my husband and I decided to do a jungle/monkey theme. I used the Wilton “Animal Cracker” cake pan. The pan gives you four different ideas and instructions for animals you can create (giraffe, panda bear, pig and cat). It really looks like a bear but you just decorate it accordingly. Read more »

Coolest Monkey Cupcakes

My husband and I decided to do a Curious George theme for our son’s first birthday party. I found the idea of monkey cupcakes on this site. I used a yellow cake mix and canned chocolate frosting for the cupcakes. To decorate them we chose M&Ms for eyes, mini fudge stripes sliced in half for the ears and vanilla wafers for the actual monkey face part. I used a black gel icing tube to make the pupils on the eyes and to draw two lines for the nose and to make the monkey’s expressions. We mixed it up and made all kinds of monkey looks, not just smiley faces! Read more »

Monkey Birthday Cake by Heather C., Lisbon, CT

Coolest Monkey Birthday Cake Ideas and Decorating Techniques

I got this idea because my daughter wanted a monkey cake for her eighth birthday. I looked online for a monkey birthday cake and found they were all basically alike. So, I wanted to do a cut out cake but didn’t need a ton of cake, it was for her class. So basically the head and body are cake and the tail is brownies. I used the two 8″ cake pans and filled with a whole box of cake mix. (This was actually a deep cake pan so this may not work for someone but you could make two per head and body). I then cooked those and made mini brownies filled 3/4 full (made more than I needed).

When cooled I cut the rounded part off the two cakes and normally you would scrap it but turned them into ears by cutting them and stacking them with a frosting middle. Once the monkey was laid out the way I liked him I started with large stars everywhere in dark brown except the face, which I cut from cake as well so that it was raised, that I did in light brown as well as in the ears. I ran out of frosting so I used canned frosting for the tummy. this you can do anything with. I put candles there because I was out of frosting but you could write something there if you wanted.

Decorating the Face

For the face I just used black gel frosting, didn’t work to well, it ran. I would suggest using plain black frosting. After it was done it looked silly without any arms or legs so I put paper leaves in by cutting them out and curling them with a pen. I placed them around the bottom of the monkey, upside down and right side up. I hope you can see how cute this is!

Have fun making your monkey birthday cake! It actually was one of the quickest cakes I have ever made!

Cutest Curious George Cake

Cake by Joleen D., Mount Vernon

My soon to be three nephew, decided he had to have a Curious George cake and I was the one elected to make this monkey birthday cake. I wanted a bright and fun layered cake with all his favorite colors and I had an idea to make the monkey sitting on top but I had never made a 3D figure before and was nervous about attempting it. It took a bit of “monkey business” to figure it out but I was really pleased with the final result.

Baking and Assembling

I used three boxed cake mixes for the cake. I used round cake pans of varying sizes for the basic cake and used chocolate butter cream frosting in-between the layers. Then I assembled the cake and “crumb coated” with a thin layer of frosting. The monkey was made out of a 6” round cake pan and several cupcakes. I cut the 6” cake in half and glued them together with chocolate butter cream frosting. I then cut it into a basic cylinder shape for the body.

The head was made by cutting off the top of two cupcakes and gluing them cut side together with more frosting. The head shape was carved using a serrated knife. I glued the head to the body with more frosting and then sat the body on the cake and skewered it in place.

I cut out basic leg and arm shapes from extra cupcakes and glued them in place with frosting.

Decorating the Cake

The monkey was “crumb coated” and the whole cake was left to dry for a bit.

I frosted the layers of cake with colored butter cream frosting using gel food coloring for the bright colors. I used a star tip for stars separating the layers. Colored butter cream was used to ice the basic face shape (a bit of red with a tiny bit of yellow to make the fleshy pink color). Chocolate butter cream was used for the monkey and the side of a knife was used to form the peaks for the hair. I piped on the ears, hands and feet with the fleshy color. I then used the chocolate butter cream frosting to pipe on the lettering and facial features. The balloon candles were purchased at a local store.

This monkey birthday cake was a fun cake to make and I was very glad I made extra cupcakes and lots of butter cream frosting to hide and fix mistakes. The end result was much better than I had expected and I can’t wait to try another one.

Fun Buttercream Birthday Cake

Monkey birthday cake by Brandy F., Boiling Springs, SC

I frosted the entire monkey birthday cake in my homemade buttercream frosting. I did the entire monkey using the “grass” tip. Instead of coloring my buttercream frosting brown I just added a little cocoa to my frosting. For the bananas I filled my icing bag on the right hand side with yellow and added some of the chocolate frosting from the monkey on the left hand side. This gave the banana a more real effect.

I made this cake for my nephew’s birthday and everyone loved the monkey. It was hard to cut him!

Delightful Monkey Birthday Cake

Cake by Jennifer S., Greenville, SC

I wanted a sweet (as in precious) cake for our son’s first birthday that went along with the adorable invitation. The invitation was from peekaboopumpkin.com and was a blue monkey. “Join us for some birthday fun our little monkey is turning one'” was the theme. I ordered the cake from the grocery store and asked them to leave the left side blank so I could decorate it in to a monkey birthday cake.

Making the Monkey Picture

I enlarged the monkey picture on the invitation to the appropriate size. Actually I did lots of enlargements to get several to choose from when the cake was picked up. I used colors from three boxes of fondant- one was skin tones, one of just white and one of pastels. There are probably more economical ways to do this but I wasn’t confident enough to experiment with coloring fondant myself.

I used various size glasses and cookie cutters to cut out shapes. I happened to have a Christmas tree cookie cutter so I used it for the star on top of the hat. Then, I free-handed the cone shape of the hat and the yellow trim. I laid the paper copy of the monkey on top of the fondant to trace the arms and legs with the knife cutting through the paper. I used the head of a tiny gingerbread man for the ear and eye pieces. In addition, I had the diaper pin and decided to just lay it on top of the monkey instead of trying to cut out a pin shape from fondant.

Monkey Cake Conclusions

You just have to get creative about what you have if you are like me and not good at free handing curves and such! I did learn that corn starch is the key to fondant- never use flour or water for that matter. I read you could get fondant to stick to other fondant pieces by using vodka but I just pushed mine into the icing on the cake and it seemed to work fine. Also the cornstarch will eventually fade away. In my picture taken right after assembly all I had done was brush off the corn starch. By party time the white traces were all gone and my monkey birthday cake was ready!

Cleverly Carved Homemade Cake

Cake by Lindsay F., Andover, NJ

I made two 12″ round cakes and one 9″ round for this monkey birthday cake. The 9″ was used for its tummy and the arms and legs are made from the two 12″ cakes. I used something round that allows about 2 1/2″ on each side of the 12″ cake to cut the arms and legs. Cut accordingly and use excess off the arms or legs for the ears (make sure you place them on the side of the head and not the top because it will look like a bear).

The other middle I sliced in half to make two thin round cakes. I used one for the raised tummy portion and the other I cut for the mouth. I used the excess cake batter and made another small cake for my son to dig into. It was his first birthday and I made cupcakes with the rest.

Make sure you save some icing for the raised layers and just add less coco. I chose to monogram the tummy but the age of the birthday boy or girl would be great too!

Easy Homemade Birthday Cake

Monkey birthday cake by Rose S., Alto, MI

I got the idea for this monkey birthday cake online but I can’t for the life of me recall the website. I baked a regular cake-mix cake in a 9″ x 13″ Pyrex pan. Then I frosted it a very light blue with buttercream. Make sure you put only a thin layer of icing on.

The monkeys and tree trunks are made of tootsie rolls. For the tree trunks just place Midges Tootsie rolls end to end. For the monkeys break the tootsie rolls into smaller pieces and roll them in your clean hands – they soften up and you can use them just like clay. The coconuts are also made with tootsie rolls. The bananas are Runts candies.

The leaves of the trees and the grass were the biggest challenge. I cut them from green Fruit Rollups. The Fruit Rollups are really sticky so it worked best to place them on a buttered plate and then cut. (Otherwise they stick to the plate or cutting board and break when you lift them up.) I used a dollop of yellow gel icing for the sun.

In all the cake took me about 15 minutes to decorate and my six year old thought it was fantastic! I couldn’t believe how easy it was!

Cool 3D Monkey Birthday Cake

Cake by Charlotte S., Georgetown, TX

This monkey birthday cake was made for my grandson Lucas’ 11th birthday party. He wanted a monkey that looked like his character in an online video game. I was successful except for the color. When I went to bed the night before the monkey was pretty orangey but when I woke up the next morning he was browner. Guess I added too much brown to the mixture.

Anyway the cake was baked in a Wilton stand-up bear pan. I had to carve it a good bit to make the monkey but it was fun. I froze the completely cooled cake to make it easier to carve then as I told Lucas I carved away everything that wasn’t a monkey.

Most of the cake is iced with a #18 star tip with a few #16 tips used to show difference in texture. His tail is made from extra cake batter (takes two recipes) baked in a square pan. Lucas loves him and said they had fun cutting off his head!

Happiest Monkey Cakes

Cake by Gretchen C., Charlotte, NC

This is the Martha Stewart idea from her Kids magazine and show for a monkey birthday cake – I got other helpful tips from this cake site. It took me two tries to get a bowl the right shape; the first one was too flat.

Baking the Cakes

The large cake is a large metal mixing bowl with one cupcake cut in half for the ears affixed with toothpicks. The small cake (it was my son’s first birthday and he got to dig in to it by himself) was a very small metal bowl with one mini cupcake cut in half for the ears.

Decorating the Cakes

The icing is chocolate and yellow buttercream. The eyes are mega M&Ms and chocolate chips for the small cake. The nose and mouth are licorice laces (I had to order it on e-bay). I can’t pipe icing so this cake is very easy. The hair is just messy piping.

I didn’t use the banana-bread like recipe that is on the Martha Stewart site. I used another banana cake she had in a Kids magazine which didn’t use egg whites or refined sugar. The large cake baked at 300F for about three hours in a convection oven. I tried a couple of times to get it right.

I hope this helps someone else with a little monkey who deserves a special monkey birthday cake.

Easy Monkey Birthday Cake

Cake by Amy M., Rockwall, TX

This monkey birthday cake is so easy! Bake the cake in an oven-proof bowl and leave enough batter to make one cupcake. After cooling invert the bowl onto your work surface. Cut in half to make layers.

Fill and frost the head with chocolate frosting. Cut the cupcake in half and attach to the head for ears. Frost the ears. Then with untainted buttercream frosting make the lighter part of the ears and mouth. For eyes I used chocolate M&Ms. For the mouth, nose and hair I piped on more chocolate and then finished with small beads of frosting around the bottom.

Cute Homemade Cake

Cake by Lucy M., Rugby, UK

My son loves monkeys so we decided to have a “MONKEY” party for his 3rd birthday. My ideas for this monkey birthday cake came from this website. I wasn’t able to get the Wilton Animal Cracker Tin that was recommended – so instead I cooked 3 large Victoria sponges.

Shaping the Cakes

Two cakes were stacked together and the middle filled with butter icing. The third “slice” was set aside and then cut into four quarters and then each quarter shaped carefully into an ear (use bread knife and make sure your cake is cool).

Two sets of “ears” were then stacked together to make each of the two ears and also so that these were the same height as the monkey’s face. The pieces of ear were stuck together with butter icing. I used cocktail sticks to hold the ears in place.

Decorating

I then drew the details of the face onto the cake using a black icing pen and filled in the different spaces with butter icing – one a much darker color that the other (add more cocoa powder to your butter icing). The eyes were made using Royal Icing and cutting out the shape and then drawing on the pupils with an icing pen.

Finally, I drew on the mouth and ear detail. The banana on the monkey birthday cake is a real banana.

Cool Cake Decorated with Chocolate Chips

Cake by Lyndell B., Cairns, Australia

I got the idea for a monkey birthday cake for my son’s 1st birthday from this web site. I have no fancy tins so I just baked two chocolate cakes and then attacked them with a knife. For the mouth part I cut an oval shape. For the eye part I cut a semi circle out of the second cake. With the left over bits I made the ears.

I stuck it all together with icing and then started to ice. As I am not to good with a star tip I iced the mouth and eye area with cream colored icing and the face with chocolate icing then sprinkled on the chocolate bits on to look like fur. I used licorice for the noise and mouth and M&M for the eyes.

Coolest Monkey Birthday Cake

Cake by Emma H., Branxton, Australia

Sam is our little “monkey”. I used his stuffed monkey as a model for his 1st birthday monkey birthday cake. I made up a triple batch of banana cake mixture. Then, I baked a round banana cake then baked more batter in some individual pie dishes I had for the ears (I wanted something a bit bigger than muffins).

I also baked about 30 muffins (I have a lot of relatives). I trimmed the ears to fit snuggly against the face. Then I used more cake to build up his face to give it a more 3D effect which really made the cake I think. I made up vanilla and chocolate butter cream then mixed some of the chocolate into the vanilla to tint it a pale brown then covered the cake.

The eyes are round chocolates split in half – I used a chocolate that was half milk and half white which made it easier to split. To finish it off I piped chocolate icing to create detail. The muffins I just two-toned iced and piped faces and ears.

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