Friday, January 29, 2010

Cheeky Monkey Cake for a cheeky monkey

My nephew turns 2 in a week or so and he and his family came to visit us in Alice Springs last weekend. His mum and dad had been through here about 6 or so years ago, prior to us living here, and were not impressed.  Let's just say large expanses of nothingness that is the outback is not their style, nor the "characters" you find here. About 500km north of here is a little town called Tennant Creek. They stopped there for lunch and to decide where in town to stay the night and, lets just say, lunch was quick and the place they stayed the night was in Mataranka, a further 500kms up the track. LOL! Each to their own, I love it.

So it was with much trepidation I awaited their visit. Throw in my two sick kids and it was looking like their three night stay was going to leave them even less impressed than last time.

I really love the town and its people, I wanted to show them a "locals" perspective. And show them we did, 40 degree temps, blazing sun, flies etc. But we did manage to show them the good side of Alice and its surrounds. I also wanted to have a little party for my god son as we miss all the kid's milestones being so far away.

He is a huge fan of the Melbourne Zoo. What is not to love? He can be found there most weekends. He loves the monkeys. So with this in mind, I contacted our local cake tin hire business and ordered the tin for the weekend.

Alice Springs is an amazing place for a remote town. If you look hard enough you can find anything you need, including cake tins for hire. This enterprising south african lady decided that there would be big business in hiring out cake tins for kids cakes. Wish I had thought of it first! Normally they retail from $39 and you only get one use out of them. Bit of a waste. But this business hires them out for $10 a weekend. What a simple but profitable business idea. I have used them 3 times in about 3 months.

Anyway, I used my "killer vanilla" cup cake recipe for the whole cake (more on that in my next blog). The first time I did it, the cake stuck to the pan and we lost his tail. So, much to my brother and partner's disgust, into the bin it went.  They were thinking lamingtons, triffle etc. I was thinking, shite, it is 8pm and I have to start again!

Second time round I greased, floured and sprayed the tin to within an inch of its life and it was perfect.  I found the cake mix went a bit dry in the bigger pan so probably wouldn't use that one again for the big cake, just the perfect cup cake!

I am becoming a bit of an expert at these kids cakes and the piping, taking less and less time each one. You need to be patient with them. When you first start the cake you will probably be thinking "what have I done, this looks quite sad" but, trust me, it all comes together in the end. My first one took about two and a half hours to ice, this one was just over an hour - I think! They really are fairly simple and follow a basic colour by numbers instruction set.  I tried to kid my brother, who is quite the cook himself, into doing one but he looked at me like I had lost my mind.

Seriously, everyone should try one, especially if you can hire a tin for $10.

My newphew loved the cake, although I think he enjoyed blowing out the candles too many times to count and eating it more than admiring the design.  Ah two year olds, no accounting for taste!

Enjoy your 2nd birthday buddy.

No comments:

Post a Comment