I am a home/hobby baker and often get asked to make baby shower cakes and it seems everyone I know is having a baby these days. They usually send me a picture of the bedding as inspiration. When I received the picture this time it had an adorable little monkey face on it so I knew the cake had to be monkey themed.
I was bored with traditional baby shower cakes and since the cake was for a good friend and I knew she would be forgiving if the whole cake failed and we ended up with cupcakes, I went for it! As this little guy came together I began to fall in love. It is literally one of my very favorite cakes of all time. I kept opening the fridge and just oohhhing. He was so adorable.
My two year old also fell in love with it being the little monkey was about his size. He would open the fridge and talk to it and look at it. He wanted to take pictures with his new little “buddy”as he named the cake. After the party was over, the cute little monkey’s head was all that was left. I couldn’t bear to throw it away so we took it home and stuck it in the fridge.
The next morning my sweet little boy opened the fridge and had a melt down…”what happened to my buddy?” I told him that he was eaten. And the sweet baby said “I didn’t eat my buddy…did I?” Oh yes you did and he was yummy!
- The body of the monkey was all cake.
- I sculpted the head from rice treats and then covered it in buttercream and left it in the refrigerator overnight to harden.
- Once it was hard, I smoothed on a second layer of buttercream and then covered it in fondant.
- I placed a pointed dowel rod in the cake to hold the head in place.
- I used spaghetti noodles to hold the ears in place.
- The arms and legs are all fondant.
After this little guy was such a huge hit, I have never been afraid to think outside the box and request someone get a cake sculpted to look like the subject matter instead of just a cake with flat decorations.