Monkey Cake

The final Monkey Cake for a friend's 19th birthday.  Practice cake can be seen here.

Monkeying Around

Happy 2013!

The holidays were low-key, baking wise. I did make cookies for co-workers and teachers, and I can't find a single picture. Nothing too exciting.

My son's friend Lauren has been asking me to make her a cake for 2 years now for her birthday.  Every time in February, we have had something come up where I cannot make it for her.  This year, I committed to making her 19th birthday cake for her February birthday.

She loves monkeys so she & I searched for images and she chose this one from the now-closed Cake Girls in Chicago (fire in 2010 destroyed their storefront. They now just sell supplies on the web.)

Another baker on Flickr, Sweet Xpressions Cakes, made this cake with a few tweaks.

Shiny!  That's usually done with steam on fondant.

I decided to have a trial run because  I always do trial runs!  I don't want to start on a cake that I have never attempted before.

For the trial, I use box cakes (which I do not like at all for making the final cakes.  Too moist, not nearly as tasty as my homemade cakes either) just to save time and money.  I made homemade marshmallow fondant (mmf) too.

I decided to make rice krispie treats (rkt) for the monkeys' heads too, and see if I preferred that over solid fondant/gumpaste heads.

Notes I made:  The rkt is lumpy obviously.  I would need to put two coats of thick  mmf over them to cover the lumps or coat them thickly in royal icing before putting the mmf over it.  I only put one layer with no icing this time, so they looked lumpy.

I might just make them out of fondant or gumpaste after all.

Also obvious, box cake is way too moist, so I was not about to carve the top of the crate flat, but I knew this going in.  So ignore the rounded tops and sides.  Also box cake won't hold the weight of the monkey heads, so there was drooping.  That won't happen in the real trial.

I was mostly trying to see if I could make the monkey heads look good and how I would work the wood grain.

Considering the materials for this cake cost me a whopping $9 to make, I'm happy with what I made. I know what to do and what not to do, and when I make the real cake, those corners should be nice and sharp and the top nice and flat.

I sent pictures to Lauren on her cell as I was making it.  She was very excited to see the progress.

Messy, I know.  

Eagle Cake Level 2

The top of the Eagle Cake is actually not a cake.  It's the rice krispie eagle head.  The middle tier is two 10" x 10" chocolate cakes with chocolate frosting, covered in homemade marshmallow fondant.

Isabel and I placed the white stars on the cake.  

Then I decided to put the eagle on top, to see how it would look.  Nice!  

Next up will be the third/bottom section of the cake; 2 ea. 11x15 yellow sheet cakes.

Eagle Cake Topper

Well, it's time to make the real Eagle Scout cake for four Scouts in Troop 196 getting their Eagle Award.  I made the practice one back in November.

Homemade Rice Krispie treats.

Covered in homemade MMF, that my sister and I colored with food color gels.

He looks mighty mean

The rest of the cake will be baked and assembled later this week.  I'll post updates as I go.

UPDATE:  Level Two, Level Three, Day of Ceremony.

The Eagle Has Landed

I've been asked to make an Eagle Scout cake for a friend's son and other Scouts all getting their Eagle Scout Award in January. This is Jacob's old Pack and Troop before we moved away 4 years ago.

After showing them a few cakes I could possibly make, we narrowed the field down to two. One of them involved two square cakes and an Eagle on the top made (see the cake made by Cake Central Member klbright here) of rice krispie treats (aka RKT.) I figured there's no time like the present to practice that Eagle. The bottom two cakes would be a breeze.

Here we go.

Look, it's GONZO!

Gonzo was covered in brown and white homemade marshmallow fondant. Then my daughter and I made the individual feathers using leaf cutters and a cutting tool.

Isabel draws the "mouth" with a food color pen.

Here Isabel uses the tool to striate the cutouts, making them look like feathers rather than leaves.

He's kind-of squat. This was using only one batch of rice krispies. I will most likely use two, to make him taller and thinner.

I tried working with luster powder, but it kind-of failed. He just looks like someone punched his eye. Tee hee. This is why I practice.

Bye Bye Gonzo. Om nom nom!