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.