Monkey Cupcakes

I know you're just as excited as I was to see how these turned out.  My coworker asked if I could make four dozen cupcakes for their baby shower; two dozen chocolate and two dozen white.  I decided to frost 12 of the chocolate and 12 of the white with chocolate frosting, and the remaining of each with vanilla frosting.  That way there's a little more variety.

Making the monkeys I knew would be a little difficult due to the shape of the face.  So as you can see, to make the face of the monkey, I used a heart cutter and a circle cutter.  I then used the same circle cutter on the heart so the circle piece would fit like a puzzle.  Magic.

I just used a larger circle cutter for the base of the face then used the inside part of a "6" cutter for the eyes for a more oval shape.  For the lighter portion of the ears and the nose, I actually used straws because I didn't have cutters small enough.  The inner portion of the ear I used a standard straw (used also for the green "confetti" circle around the actual monkey) and for the nostrils I used a small cocktail straw.  Crafty, I know.  The smiles were just strands and more circles upon circles.  It really wasn't difficult getting the pieces.  It was tedious trying to get them to stick considering by the time I was finished cutting all of the pieces, the fondant was drying making it difficult to adhere to the base.  Nonetheless, it was about 4 hours of work just doing the fondant, with plenty of breaks to re-hydrate.

Moving on, after frosting, I smushed the monkey on top so the frosting formed a lip around the edge so the green confetti pieces could fit accordingly.  Annnnd done.