Monkey Cake

This is the cake that I made for my toddler’s birthday.  I was really pleased with it so I thought I would share how it was done.

I made two normal sponges using Nigella’s buttermilk birthday cake recipe.

One I used just as it was for the shape of the monkey’s face.

With the other I used a cookie cutter to cut out two round ears.  Then I cut a banana shape out of the remaining piece and fed the rest to the chickens as a special treat!

To decorate the cake I used butter icing with a little bit of milk in to give it an easier texture to work with.  I put a little coco in and did the face shape and then added more to do his forehead ears and any other visible cake.

The eyes are minstrels and his nose and mouth are strawberry laces.  His ears are circles of rice-paper.

The banana is decorated with butter icing coloured with a small amount of turmeric and the green lines are lime flavoured laces.

It was a real winner and it tasted nice too.  My toddler was thrilled with it.