Paul Frank Monkey Birthday Cake

Here's a Paul Frank Monkey themed birthday cake that I made for my friends Katie and Thomas sons' Joshua's 2nd Birthday! This is a 2 tiered yellow butter cake with vanilla buttercream frosting and fondant decorations.

Joshua LOVES the Paul Frank monkey line of clothing from Target, and every time he sees a monkey he says "EE-EE". So this clothing tag from one of his favorite shirts was the inspiration for his birthday cake!


First I found a graphic of the Paul Frank monkey on the internet and then enlarged it so I could print it out and use as a template for creating the face for the cake. I took some white fondant and dyed it a light brown to create the flesh color of the monkey face.


I traced around the monkey face print out using a sharp knife to create a total of 5 monkeys for the cake.


Next I took some black fondant and created the head and facial features.


And last, using red fondant I formed the big monkey mouth!


I tinted some more white fondant 2 shades of blue and cut out circles to be used for the birthday message on the cake.


This was the first time I had ever made a tiered cake! I've made many 2 and 3 layer cakes before, but never have I attempted to layer different size layered-cakes on top of one another! The bottom cake was two 8-inch layers that had 5 dowl rods for support placed inside. The top tier was two 6-inch layers. After I placed the top tier on the bottom tier I was a little nervous, hoping the bottom tier wouldn't collapse from the weight of the top tier. I know cakes are layered on top of each other all day long by professional bakers, but myself being an amateur just starting out I wasn't sure what to expect....thank goodness it all turned out ok and the cake didn't crumble to pieces!


Here's a close up of "Julius" the monkey on top of the cake!


The start of the fondant decorations around the cake.


Using a food safe marker I wrote on "Happy Birthday Joshua" on the fondant circles. Using a dab of water on a tiny paint brush I applied the fondant to the cake so they would stick.



I placed four more monkey's around the bottom tier of the cake.

Joshua and his parents just came by the house and personally gave me a Thank You card for the cake...how sweet is that! They said it was a hit at his birthday party today! He is the cutest little boy with blonde shaggy hair and a huge smile on his face! Joshua was wearing some new Paul Frank swim trunks he got today...they were orange, yellow and red plaid with the monkey sporting a pair of red sunglasses...so cute!

HAPPY 2nd BIRTHDAY JOSHUA!