Cute & Cheeky Little Monkey Cake
I made this for my youngest daughter's first birthday. Originally I had wanted to make a hot air balloon out of fondant but I rethought the design when I saw our local party shop had these fantastic clear helium-filled balloons which were filled them with little air-filled balloons- so cute. I ordered one and tied them to the little monkey's hand (which you can see in one of the photos).
The Basket: The basket itself was made over a week- I first made a flat disc for the base of the basket and allowed that to harden for a little. The next bits were easy but each rolled fondant row needed to harden before attaching the next row of rolled fondant (otherwise the weight of the fondant gets squashed resulting in loss of form). I added some CMC to the yellow fondant to help it harden faster as I did not have any gum paste (which is essentially fondant with CMC pre-mixed). Once the entire basket had hardened, I added the decorative strips, flags and sand bags. The flags and bags were dusted with shimmery petal dusts in pink and gold. The string detail was added using a brown food ink pen.
The monkey: The monkey was inspired by one that I found when Googling for cute monkeys (see https://www.pinterest.com/pin/437482551281310528/). She consists of a lighter brown main body and face which was then encased in dark brown fondant which was pre cut to show the lighter body enough. Her arms and ears were attached separately. Eyes, ears and mouth were indented first before being filled with small balls of black fondant (the eyes) or colour and detail added with food ink pens. Petal dust was used for cheeks. The monkey took a couple of days to make as well- again it was mostly drying time as with the basket.
The cake: a butter cake with white chocolate ganache encased in white fondant that was dusted with petal dust to create a pink blush all over. The letters and clouds were cut and attached immediately.
Party food: Jelly (set in cupcake wrappers and decorated with flags from the cupcake wrapper set) and marshmallow pops (marshmallows on a lollipop stick and coated with candy coating and sugar decorations) have become standard kid party fare at our house. Some brownies and coconut ice balls and the cute cloud shaped butter cookies were cut out by my then 4 year old daughter. These were iced with the leftover white chocolate ganache and sprinkled with 'Hundreds n Thousands'. I also had a little jar of jelly beans and a bucket of mini Chupa Chups in case the kids needed an extra dose of sugar.
Decorations: Paper lanterns and white bobbly yarn were my friend for this party. I attached cupcake cases to the 'hot air balloons' and strung them up with the white yarn. Pretty pink with white polka dot tissue paper were cut into the shape of clouds and studded with cotton balls by my 5 year old. Simple yellow plastic tablecloths were used on both tables. And because it was mostly family and close friends with only a few children and a couple of babies I served up a hot lunch instead of additional party food.