How to Decorate a Monkey on a Pile of Bananas Cake

 Things You'll Need:

• baked dome shaped cake (baked in Wonder Mold pan or Pyrex bowl)
• buttercream icing
• yellow gel food coloring
• brown gel food coloring
• fondant

Step 1: Shape the bananas out of fondant two to three days ahead of time so they will hold their shape. To make the bananas, take a very small amount of fondant that has been tinted yellow. Roll it into a snake shape, make the ends slightly smaller. Curve the banana slightly. There isn't one right way to do this so just play with it until your bananas look right to you. Place the bananas on waxed paper to dry.

Step 2: Shape a monkey out of fondant. Add a very small amount of brown food coloring to fondant for the face and stomach accents. Add more brown food coloring to the rest of the fondant to make the rest of the body. Modeling with fondant is similar to modeling with clay. Play around with your monkey until it looks right to you.

 

Step 3: Once your bananas and monkey have had a chance to dry for a couple of days, prepare the cake. Place the dome shaped cake on a cake board or serving platter. Tint the buttercream icing with the yellow food coloring. Slowly add the yellow coloring until the icing matches the yellow color of the fondant bananas.

 

Step 4: Ice the dome shaped cake with the yellow buttercream. This will form the pile of bananas for the birthday cake. Make the icing look neat but don't worry if it's not perfectly smooth because it will be covered by the fondant bananas.

 

Step 5: Place the bananas on the dome cake. Vary the manner in which you place the bananas on the cake so it looks like a pile of bananas. They will stick to the buttercream icing so there is no need for anything extra to hold them onto the birthday cake.

 

Step 6: Mix a small amount of brown gel food coloring with a small amount of water. With a clean paint brush, add brown accents to the bananas. Paint the stem brown. Make a few brown lines down the banana. Making the brown accents on each banana unique makes it more realistic.

 

Step 7: Carefully place the fondant monkey on top of the pile. Place a fondant banana in his hand, his lap, or on top of his head.