Birthday 3 for Monkey-Moo

Little Moo is about to turn THREE, three....can that be true? Where on earth does the time go?
 



Recent weeks have been spent trying to work out what cake the little Moo would like for his special day...we've been round in circles, from pirates, to trains, buses and ducks, cars, camper vans and Minions...but finally settled on the Hungry Caterpillar.
                                              

Thanks to Pinterest, I've found a fairly simple and effective Hungry Caterpillar cake to attempt. Take a look at the original, I hope mine does it proud!

   To construct the caterpillar, I baked two batches of my trusted cupcake recipe, and for the cake, decided to go with the fabulous Betty Crocker Devils Food cake mix, it never fails to please! With two Monkey-Moos Chocolate cake is always the requested favourite, and I find that Betty never makes a dry cake at all! Go Betty, you rock! 

Using butter cream icing, I made up two batches of a lighter green and a very dark green for the body.
Fortunately I thought to grab a couple spoonfuls of butter cream icing before adding the green, and coloured some dark yellow and left just enough to sandwich the two cakes together and do a crumb coat for the face.



Piping bags in hand I set about dropping spoonfuls of dark and green icing into the icing bag ( I should have used two bags inside a third to get the swirled two toned effect I was after) and iced all the cupcakes, even the ones I knew I wouldn't use (just in case there was any emergencies-Eek)

I used Poppy Red ready to roll icing/fondant to do the face, rolled it out and popped over the crumb coat. I've not yet mastered that skill, and so was left with a few folds that I tried to hide. More practise needed using fondant I think!

I had some lilac icing/fondant left over from a cake a month before so moulded it to shape and rolled it for the feelers.

During the deciding phase I had purchased some black icing/fondant for the wheels of either bus or camper van, so this came in handy when I remembered the caterpillar needed some feet! Simply moulded and flattened them by hand, simple!

I arranged the all the cupcakes, continually referring to Pinterest for guidance and placed the head,feelers and feet as needed.
I'm proud of my cake.
Birthday Monkey-Moo LOVED it!

The go-to cupcake recipe

Whenever I need to whip up a batch of cupcakes for school fairs, church bake sales or simply because Monkey and Moo need keeping busy on a rainy Saturday morning. This is my "go-to" recipe. It's adapted from this little gem The BIG book of Baking.

The recipe I use is a standard fairy cake recipe, I make a few subtle changes to get it just the way we like it, particularly I like to add flavouring, occasionally colour, and changing the method slightly. 

You will need 

115g unsalted butter or baking margerine

115g caster sugar

2 large eggs

115g self raising flour

5ml vanilla extract or other flavouring(I favour Caramel essence, but use whatever you like)

Here's what to do. 

Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. (I'm getting lazy since having Monkey-Moos so use the electric mixer instead of elbow grease)

Add eggs one at a time and beat well after each addition. Add the flavouring with the last egg addition.

Fold in the flour until just mixed. Don't over mix. 

Spoon the mixture into cupcake cases. Filling to about three quarters full. 

Place in pre heated oven 180' C for 15-20 minutes or until the cake tester comes out clean. 

And the finished result awaiting the decorative icing skills of two little MonkeyMoos. 

Enjoy!