Рецепт Chocolate and Peanut Butter Monkey Cake
I was highly inspired by HHB's latest blog post on her monkey cake that she baked for her son's birthday. I think her Monkey Cake is adorable and pretty doable for a beginner home-baker like myself.
I've been brewing the idea of baking an animal designed birthday cake for the kids for quite some time. Yesterday happened to be my nephew's and niece's birthday celebration at my Mother-in-Law (MIL)'s house so I thought of baking this cute Monkey Cake for them. In short, on Friday evening, I hesitated no more. I put my baby girl on her stroller, took all the baking utensils out of my kitchen cabinet and started whipping the cake batter. Luckily, my baby behaved incredibly well on the evening when Mommy was busy in the kitchen.
I didn't have any bananas at home so instead of making a banana cake as stated in the original HHB's Monkey Cake's recipe, I baked a simple chocolate cake for the cake base and used chocolate rice for the monkey face decoration instead of chocolate rice cereals. I seldom eat cereals for breakfast so I was not so eager in buying, hence, wasting a big box of rice cereal just for the sake of one-time cake's decoration.
Here's how I put the Chocolate and Peanut Butter Monkey Birthday Cake together.
My first animal cake: Chocolate and Peanut Buttercream Monkey Cake.
Chocolate and Peanut Buttercream Monkey Cake
Ingredients:
- For the Chocolate Cake:
- For the Chocolate Buttercream Frosting:
- 100gr Unsalted butter, melted
- 50gr Cocoa powder
- 60ml Liquid milk
- 300gr Icing sugar
- Vanilla extract
- For the Peanut Buttercream:
- 50gr Unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 30gr Icing sugar, sifted
- 1 tbsp Liquid Milk
- 1 tbsp Peanut Butter
- For the Cake's Decoration:
- 2 Chocolate chips
- 1 large round cookie
- Chocolate rice
Tutorials:
To make the base cake: Please refer to this recipe.
To prepare the chocolate buttercream frosting: Stir in the cocoa powder and vanilla extract into the melted butter. Alternately add the icing sugar and milk into the melted butter, beating to spreading consistency by using medium speed electric mixer.
Fill and set aside a tablespoon of the chocolate buttercream in a piping bag for the Monkey's nose and mouth decoration.
Let the chocolate cake completely cool down before frosting or decorating the cake with the chocolate and peanut buttercream.
To make the peanut buttercream: Beat the unsalted butter with high-speed electric mixer until creamy. Add icing sugar and peanut butter. Keep beating until the cream is pale and fluffy. Add liquid milk and keep mixing until you get the desired consistency. Set aside.
To assemble: On the chocolate cake surface, draw a face of a monkey with a toothpick for easy guideline. Evenly spread the peanut butter cream on the monkey face's outline. Place 2 chocolate chips on the face for the monkey's eyes and draw the monkey's nose and mouth using the chocolate buttercream inside the piping bag.
Frost the remaining cake with the chocolate buttercream and pour the chocolate rice on top of the chocolate buttercream.
Halve a cookie and place each of them on the each side of the cake as the monkey's ears.
A perfect animal cake design for kid's birthday.
The kids were beyond excited when I presented the Monkey Cake to them. One of my nephews claimed that the Monkey Cake mimics him so well because his hairstyle is almost bald and he has very big ears too - just like the monkey.
And oh, this cake marks the first cake that I bake in 2013!