The Cake!

It's done...it's definitely not perfect, but it's done.  Charlie's first birthday will be commemorated this evening with a homemade (well, the cake was a mix, but the icing was homemade) and home-decorated sock monkey cake!

I got this wild idea about 2 months ago when we bought Charlie a Monkeez sock monkey bank on our trip to the mountains.  It's a new twist on the old sock monkeys -- they're all sorts of bright, fun colors.  When we got home I went on the website and they have sock monkey everything! 

So, Aunt Erin and Aunt Ashley have bought him the growth chart, the picture frame, the  white board and the magnet set for his birthday (thank you!), Grandma got him Max, the Happy Birthday Sock Monkey, and he may even get a table and chairs!  It's going to be the "theme" of the playroom.  (Yes, Jason is far more tolerant than I deserve).

Well, with all of this I decided to do a Sock Monkey birthday party, too.  I found a bear/giraffe/cat cake pan and decided that with some minor surgery it could look like a monkey, so I stocked up on frosting tips and bags and the good food color (that stuff is powerful!).  I had it all planned out and yesterday was the day.

I baked the cake in the morning,  mixed up the frostings and surgically removed and re-attached the ears in the afternoon and then commenced decorating as soon as Charlie went to bed.

Jason had a meeting after work, and being as impatient as ever, I went ahead and started without him.  A little context is probable required here.  In my life, I have decorated two cakes -- a birthday cake for my mom when I was 9 which was likely the ugliest cake ever, and an anniversary cake for Jason's and my 4th or 5th anniversary (I can't honestly remember).  Both of which were simple, layer cakes.  I am definitely more of a cook than a baker - baking and decorating just require more patience and precision than I typically have.

But -- this is my Charlie's first birthday!  I desperately wanted to create something fun and unique just for him -- and as the picture below will show, this cake is nothing if not unique.  Plus, I am a Food Network Challenge addict -- and if they can build those towering, teetering, sculpted masterpieces in six hours, surely I can pull off a single layer monkey in a whole day...right?

So, back to the decorating.  Everything started out great.  I got the blue frosting into the bag and both of my practice stars were perfect -- I was using the piping/starring technique, because I find frosting nearly impossible to spread (hence the fact that only half of our cupcakes are going to see the light of day this evening). 

I was chugging right along when I noticed that my stars were beginning to melt.  I had refrigerated the frosting, but as Jason pointed out when he got home, my hands were warming it up as I went.  One can assume that had I read the complete Wilton instructions that came with my tips, I would have seen this, but it's too late now.

So, I stuck the monkey in the fridge and the icing in the freezer and ate a frozen pizza while I waited.  Then we pulled it out and started again, but ran into the same issue after a bit of time -- plus the stars on the sides of the cake were just oozing together, so I decided to just spread the sides of the cake (much faster, anyway).  The green and red frostings both worked like a charm -- probably because I used less of them, but the blue and yellow are pretty runny -- it kind of looks like our sock monkey started to melt. 

Towards the end I had to have Jason take over the green ring around the base.  I truly got to the point where I could barely squeeze the bag -- who knew decorating cakes was such a physical activity!

The end result is a little bit lopsided and to be honest, he looks kind of mean.  Nevertheless, it IS a sock monkey!  And if it tastes half as good as the approximately 2 cups of buttercream icing I licked off my fingers yesterday, it will be delicious.

I have no doubt that Charlie would have dived just as enthusiastically into a simple sheet cake or even a cake from Publix, but I am thrilled with my creation.  This is another one of those "mom"moments for me.  A year ago I couldn't even fathom that my brand new baby would be turning one in the blink of an eye and two years ago I honestly believed that I'd never have a baby.  But last night I took on a crazy plan, beyond my abilities and while visibly it just turned out "ok", in reality it's fabulous -- it's my cake for my Charlie's first birthday and I did it myself (mostly)!

Previous Cake

Tah-Dahh!!