A monkey face cake for a first birthday
As my son is a big fan of monkeys, for his 1st birthday I decided to make a monkey face cake.
In such an undertaking, my first port of call for ideas is always the internet. There were quite a few monkey face cakes to get inspiration from, but no particular one that stood out. I decided to make a bit of a hybrid of 3 different cakes, with my own twist.
The first cake I took inspiration from (and my favourite of the 3) was submitted by Sue Kerry to coolest-birthday-cakes.com.
Of all the cakes, this was the one that I felt had the best face shape. As a bit of a cake n00b, I wanted my cake to be as quick and easy to make as possible; I therefore wanted something a bit simpler than the very pretty, but quite intricate icing. I also loved the leaf idea as I felt it really made the cake ‘pop’.
The next cake I took inspiration from was this one from Bird On A Cake...
I didn’t take a huge amount from this cake, but I really liked the ideas of using cookies for the ears. Again, with time being of the essence, I didn’t want to have to make extra cake to shape the ears and cookies would be quick and tasty without compromising the appearance.
The final cake I took inspiration from was from Cook Eat Share.
I liked the effect of the chocolate sprinkles on this one. On my cake, I used chocolate curls instead, but it was this cake that gave me the idea.
And finally, here is my hybrid...
For the actual cake I just used a Betty Crocker packet mix and frosting (quick, easy and the results are always good!). I purchased some ready to roll fondant icing in flesh, white and brown for all the face details. To get a good shape for the face, I cut out the face shape on a bit of card first and then used it as a template for the icing. The ears are just triple chocolate cookies (available in the bakery section of most supermarkets) and are just slotted in between the two layers of cake. It’s then finished off with the chocolate curls popped on top of the frosting, before adding the final touch of the green leaves to make it really stand out. And that’s it- easy peasy! Most of the bits I needed were available from the local supermarket, but the bits that weren’t (fondant icing in the colours I needed and the green card) I picked up from eBay.
I was really pleased with the results, so thought I would share it on here, in case it can help anyone else. I think my son liked it too!