Monkeyin' Around

The male howler monkey's cry can be heard for 10 miles, making it the loudest land animal in the world.

Monkeys yawn not only when they are tired, but also when they are mad.

Monkeys do not catch colds, but orangutangs, chimps, and gorillas all do.

Curious little critters, those monkeys. Strange to think that we are all part of the hominidae family. Because we, according to science, are so closely related to furry, banana-eating animals, this post is dedicated to all the monkeys in the world. But in all honesty, this post is about monkeys because I realized that I had pictures of two monkey desserts that I had made in the past and never posted about.

One of my roommates loves monkeys, so for her past 2 birthdays, I have made two simple monkey desserts. The first were banana nut cupcakes, decorated to look like monkeys. The recipe was taken from Betty Crocker: Baking for Today.

• 1/3 cup milk
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1 egg
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup light brown sugar
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 cup mashed, ripe bananas
• 1/3 cup dried cranberries
• 1/3 cup toasted walnuts, chopped
  
  

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. Line muffin pan with cupcake liners
3. Beat milk, oil, eggs, and mashed bananas.
4. Stir in flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt until well mixed. The mixture will be lumpy.
5. Fold in cranberries and walnuts.
6. Bake 20-25 minutes

To decorate, I used the following ingredients:

• 1 tub chocolate frosting
• chocolate chips
• Strawberry Twizzlers (Pull-n-Peel)
• Nilla wafers, halved
• Mini oreos
• Red frosting
• Sprinkles, optional

After the cupcakes have cooled, spread the chocolate frosting on the cupcakes. I used chocolate chips for the eyes and sprinkles for the nose, but you can use the chips for both if

you like. The ears are mini Oreos and the mouth is half of a Nilla wafer. For the lips, I used red frosting to stick a Twizzler onto the wafer.

I liked this recipe because 1) it was easy 2) it was fun and 3) it plays up the monkey idea with the bananas

So this year for my roommate's birthday, I wanted to make another monkey dessert, but knew that it should be something different. My other roommate and I decided that we would make a monkey cake.

We figured this would be more of a cake valued for its visual appeal rather than its taste, so we focused more on the decorating than anything else. With that said, we used a store-bought chocolate cake mix.

After baking the cake in two 9-in round cake pans according to the box's instructions, we popped the cake pans into the freezer. This is a trick I use when I am icing a cake in a rush because it prevents the cake from crumbling during the frosting process. Additionally, it makes the cake easier to carve into whatever shape needed; in thise case, a monkey's face. One thing to note is that you must be careful if you decide to put your cake into the freezer. Leaving it in there for too long will draw out the moisture and result in a dry cake. I usually leave it in there for no more than 10-15 minutes.

Here are the decorating ingredients to make this monkey cake:

• chocolate frosting (I prefer the whipped kind for easy spreading)
• white frosting
• Oreos
• Twizzlers Pull-N-Peel
• Chocolate chips

After we pulled the cake out of the freezer and popped them out of their cake pans, we frosted the first layer with a healthy layer of chocolate frosting and then topped it off with the second layer. We then used a long, serrated knife and carved the shape of a monkey's face. To do this, we left the bottom half untouched and carved a hill shape into the top half.

We frosted the top half of the cake, leaving space to frost with the white frosting for the monkey's mouth region. I recommend outlining the area that you want to frost with white and then using the chocolate to close in the gaps.

For the eyes, we outlined with white frosting to avoid the Oreos from blending in with the rest of the monkey's face. His ears are Oreos as well. Chocolate chips make the nostrils and a Twizzler was used for his lips. We used chocolate sprinkles to give him some hair and coated some Twizzlers with chocolate frosting to give him tufts of hair at the top of his head.

If you notice, many of the decorating ingredients are the same for both of these monkey desserts. It'd be extremely easy to make both and prevent buying an entire bag of chocolate chips or Twizzlers and not use all of them. If you decide to make both at the same time, I recommend using the same mix for both (ie: banana nut for cupcakes and cake or chocolate for cupcakes and cake)

As I was looking through my folder of food pictures, I realized that I like baking things that are visually shocking (remember the Tofurkey post?) I guess these two desserts fall into that category.

Now I have one year to think of a new monkey dessert for next year's birthday. Monkey bread? We'll see.