Monkey Cake

Step-by-step preparation

Cooking time: 3 hr 30 mins

1. STEP 1

   

   Products needed for making cakes. Sift the flour. Take the kefir and eggs out of the refrigerator in advance and heat them to room temperature. It is better to take granulated sugar with small crystals.

2. STEP 2

   

   Break the eggs into a deep bowl, beat them a little without sugar with a whisk, add a pinch of salt. Then gradually add sugar and continue whisking, trying to dissolve the sugar crystals. You can beat it in a food processor or with a mixer. We get a homogeneous mass.

3. STEP 3

   

   Pour some of the kefir into the egg-sugar mixture. Pour soda into the bowl with kefir, stir very thoroughly so that the soda dissolves completely. Foam will begin to rise in the bowl, which means that a reaction has occurred and we have extinguished the soda. Pour the contents of the bowl into a bowl, stir until smooth.

4. STEP 4

   

   Pour the sifted flour into a bowl in parts and continue whisking so that there are no lumps.

5. STEP 5

   

   We get a homogeneous dough with the consistency of thick sour cream. Prepare 2 round molds for baking cakes. Coat the inside of the bottom and sides of the molds, sprinkle them with flour or ground breadcrumbs. Pour half of the dough into one of the molds.

6. STEP 6

   

   Add sifted cocoa powder to the remaining half of the dough. Stir until smooth. Pour the finished dough into the prepared mold.

7. STEP 7

   

   Place the molds with the dough in an oven preheated to 200 degrees. Bake for 15 minutes, reduce the heat to 180 degrees and bake the cakes until ready for another 25-30 minutes (baking time depends on the characteristics of the particular oven). Then cool the finished cakes a little, remove them from the molds, and let them cool to room temperature. It’s good if you bake them in advance and let them sit for a day. The cakes will become denser, making them easier to work with later.

8. STEP 8

   

   For sour cream, beat thick, fatty sour cream or cream with powdered sugar in a bowl.

9. STEP 9

   

   From the light cake we make a monkey’s face: using a sharp knife we ​​cut off the excess parts of the cake from the middle of the forehead (the top point of the cake) to the cheeks from both sides. We don’t touch the cake anymore, otherwise it remains intact. Everything is very simple! You can make a stencil in advance and cut the cake according to it. Cut the cake lengthwise into 2 parts, grease only the bottom cake with sour cream, sprinkle it with pieces of chopped dried apricots (any other sour fruit). Cover with the top crust.

10. STEP 10

    

    We hide the rest of the sour cream in the refrigerator. We prepare a beige cream from boiled condensed milk and butter. The butter must be removed from the refrigerator in advance; it will become soft. You can first beat the butter, and then add condensed milk into it in parts. The cream becomes thick and homogeneous. Place it in the refrigerator for 30 minutes. There it will become even thicker and later it will be easier to spread it evenly on the cake.

11. STEP 11

    

    Cut off a piece of baking parchment. Break off the chocolate bars - 4 pieces of white chocolate, 5 pieces of milk chocolate and put them in two different zip bags, which we close very tightly. Heat water in a saucepan on the stove, but not to a boil, and lower the bags of chocolate into the water one by one. Melt the chocolate until liquid. Using scissors, carefully cut off a very small corner of each bag, almost the size of a pinhead.

12. STEP 12

    

    We place 2 circles of the same size on parchment paper, drawing them with white chocolate, squeezing the chocolate through the hole in the bag. These will be the monkey's eyes. Place the parchment in the refrigerator for 3 minutes to let the chocolate harden. Then we draw pupils on top with milk chocolate and put them in the refrigerator again. Then we draw 2 identical drops on the pupils with white chocolate to make the eyes more lively. Here they are ready! Place the parchment back in the refrigerator.

13. STEP 13

    

    Using melted milk chocolate, we draw a line on the monkey’s face between the beige and chocolate cream in order to more accurately apply these 2 creams to the cake. We take beige buttercream out of the refrigerator and spread it on the lower part of the monkey’s face. Using melted milk chocolate we draw the monkey's nostrils. Place the cake in the refrigerator.

14. STEP 14

    

    Products for chocolate cream. Break the chocolate into pieces. Take the butter and cream out of the refrigerator in advance and bring it to room temperature.

15. STEP 15

    

    Melt the cream in a small saucepan in a water bath without bringing it to a boil, add pieces of chocolate, melt it, stirring constantly and not letting the mixture boil, bring it to a homogeneous consistency. Then cool to room temperature. In a bowl, mix softened butter and boiled condensed milk.

16. STEP 16

    

    Add the creamy chocolate mixture little by little to the bowl. Stir until smooth.

17. STEP 17

    

    This is how the chocolate cream turns out: smooth and shiny. Cool it for 30 minutes in the refrigerator.

18. STEP 18

    

    While the chocolate cream is cooling, we are making additional elements of the cake. Using a cookie cutter, an inverted glass, or some other way, cut out 4 circles of the same diameter from the dark cake layer, take out the remaining sour cream from the refrigerator, and grease the circles with it. We put them in the refrigerator so that the cream hardens.

19. STEP 19

    

    We take out the snowball circles from the refrigerator, in the center of each we write the corresponding number with a colored sugar pencil for drawing on confectionery products. By placing them side by side, we can get the number 2016. We put the circles in the refrigerator again.

20. STEP 20

    

    We take out the remaining beige butter cream on boiled condensed milk from the refrigerator and tint it with green food coloring. To do this, dilute green dye crystals in a small amount of boiled water (about 1 tablespoon) until completely dissolved. Bring the color of the cream to the desired shade, mixing the cream very thoroughly.

21. STEP 21

    

    Then cut out 2 more circles from the dark cake layer of the same diameter as the circles with numbers. They will serve as stands for our Christmas trees. Squeeze out the green cream from a pastry syringe or bag with an asterisk nozzle in a circle, in a spiral, gradually narrowing the spiral turns upward, forming a Christmas tree-shaped cake. We place a star on the top of the Christmas tree and sprinkle the Christmas tree with colored powder. We put the cakes in the refrigerator so that the cream does not melt and keeps its shape well.

22. STEP 22

    

    Cut out 2 ovals from the dark cake layer. They will be monkey ears. We take the chocolate cream out of the refrigerator and apply it to the top and sides of the ears. We also apply the cream to the top of the monkey’s face and to the side surfaces of the cake along its entire perimeter. Sprinkle the ears with brown powder, imitating wool, and give the monkey a hairstyle with the same powder. Sprinkle the middle of the ears with white coconut flakes.

23. STEP 23

    

    Making eyes for the monkey. Draw the monkey's mouth with a red sugar pencil. That's it, the monkey is ready! Now sprinkle the dish with white coconut flakes, imitating a snowball. We put Christmas trees on the sides, between them we put circles with the inscription 2016. The New Year's dessert is ready. Bon appetit to you, your guests and family! Happy upcoming holiday!