Beach Monkey Cake

Extreme Chocolate Monkey Cupcakes

For my middle son's 6th birthday, I made him monkey themed cupcakes for his class celebration. He is really into what he calls "extreme chocolate" thanks to Dairy Queen's blizzard campaign of that name. These were extreme chocolate in that they were made of Devil's food cake, homemade rich chocolate buttercream, and chocolate fondant monkeys. He was super happy with them.

Curious George Cake

My friend asked me to make a Curious George themed cake for her son who was turning 2. I was a bit nervous to make it, because I had never made a vegan cake before, and she had bought me a special vegan box cake to make. It was the Cherrybrook brand in a vanilla flavor and it was actually really delicious. I loved the buttery flavor and the unique texture it had. My favorite part about this cake is the little beach ball next to George. It just didn't look right with a one dimensional piped ball on the top since Curious George is 3D (it was a candle she gave me), so I rolled a little ball of fondant and piped the beach ball details onto it. It's funny how sometimes the best parts of a cake are the parts you really didn't plan on initially!

Crazy Monkey

When my middle son who is obsessed with monkeys turned 5, we had this huge monkey birthday party for him at the park. We hired someone to come out in a monkey suit and play games with the kids. It was super fun. He wanted the craziest looking monkey we could come up with for his cake, so here it is. I didn't like the way it looked at all, but he loved it, so that's what matters. Many of the details on the monkey face are made out of homemade modeling chocolate. This was my first time making modeling chocolate and I couldn't believe how easy it was to make or how much fun it was to work with. I found the idea for the cupcakes online and tried to copy it and the cupcakes went to his preschool class celebration. They were a big hit! His favorites were the ones with the red m & m eyes because they looked the craziest to him.