For my youngest granddaughter’s first birthday her mommy wanted a cake with monkeys. Her room has monkeys and her nick name is “Monkey.” We found napkins with monkeys and I patterned the monkeys on the cake after the ones on the napkins. The cake is on a Wilton 3-tier party stand.
I started preparing over a week ahead of the party by baking and freezing cakes, making icing and homemade fondant (It tastes REALLY good…marshmallows and powdered sugar…what’s not to like???). The cakes are: bottom layer 12” round, the middle 10” round and the top is a 6” double layer. I always make both chocolate and white or yellow cake layers.
The cakes are frosted with butter cream icing. I have found I like regular decorator icing better because it has more “body” to it. The bubbles at the bottom of the waterfalls are candies. The flowers, bananas/peels and monkeys are made of fondant. All the monkey parts are made separately and then assembled just before placing them on the cake. I use either toothpicks or bamboo skewers to attach the smaller parts to the bodies. I use ¼” dowel rods to stabilize the cake layers and often to attach fondant figures.
This was a fun cake to make. Getting just the right poses for the monkeys was a challenge. I loved making the banana and peels. I don’t have the special rack for making flowers curved but I have some small bowls I put them in to dry and it works pretty well. For the monkeys eyes and smiles I used a food marker.
I also make a small “smash” cake for the baby that wasn’t very fancy and my handwriting with icing is not very steady.
The three monkeys on the cake represent the one year old and her two older sisters. She may be the one called Monkey but the older girls act like monkeys!
