Roar! Safari Baby Shower ... Monkey & Banana Cupcake Toppers

This past weekend one of my dear friends had a baby shower to welcome in her 2nd baby boy that is coming very soon.  She picked a safari theme and I was asked to help with treats.  As usual I went a little nutty going over the board buying things and wanting to make everything I found.  With some urging from Rick I stepped back out of the host roll I was not and back to the helper role I was asked to be (yup I'm working on my over doing it .. lol).  Returned $100 worth of items and stuck to a few basics for the party.  First on my list was the cupcakes, I made 2 dozen with two different toppers.  The toppers I could make before hand so the day of the party I could just go and not worry about making them the day of.

I first started with the monkey's since they would take a little bit of time to make.  I found a few versions of pictures that I like and kind of made my own from it.  I used inspiration from Rose Bakes and Stagetectures.

I started with making my favorite Rolled Buttercream Fondant (I've posted my recipe so many times I'm just going to give you the link to not make this post crazy long).  I hit up Micheal's for Wilton icing food coloring in Brown and Ivory.  I used a circle cutter and two oval cutters.

What you Need:

Rolled Buttercream Fondant

Wilton Icing Color Brown

Wilton Icing Color Ivory

Circle Cutter

Ivory Cutters

Paint Brush with water

Powder Sugar (for rolling)

Make the fondant, break into 2 balls one larger ball (brown) and one smaller one (ivory).  Roll out the fondant using powder sugar so it won't stick.  I only made 12 monkey's so my monkey's were really thick, you can roll your's thinner if you would like.  The brown I rolled out and cut out 12 circles.  With my left over brown I rolled it out and used my smallest oval cutter to make the ears (24 total).  I then rolled out the ivory cut out 12 ovals (for the mouths).  Once the mouths were cut out I used my fondant cutter VERY lightly to make a straight line for the lips.  I was going to use food writers to color on the eyes but instead I used the pointy end of my paint brush to make two eyes.  To attach my mouth and ears I used my paint brush and a little warm water.  I let the Monkey's sit out to harden up a little bit before attaching to my frosted cupcakes.  See the picture below for a step by step.

After the Monkey's I made my go to best Buttercream Frosting (again to keep this post from being so long I'm including my recipe via the link).  I also made my go to Moist White Cake Recipe.

After the Monkey's were done I made the banana's for the other 12 cupcakes, this was the easiest part.  I bought a banana silicone mold off Amazon.

What you Need:

Banana Silicone Mold

Yellow Wilton Candy Melts

I loaded up each banana cavity with 6 melts and placed it into the microwave for 1 min 30 sec. You may need to do a extra 30 seconds if needed.  When you take them out bang the tray a few times to get the air bubbles out.  I placed mine in the freezer, about 10 minutes later I carefully popped them out.  I placed them on top of the cupcake and then into the fridge to make sure they didn't melt.

The cupcakes were a little time consuming but so cute and worth it!

Stay Tune for a few more Safari themed items

Thanks for Stopping by!

Don't forget to see the parties I link up to HERE.