Curious George Cake

Who doesn't love Curious George?  The books were some of my favorites as a kid.  Here is a cake for a Curious George loving 2 year old. Flat fondant figures are a good place to start with making figures out of fondant.  I like to add a little 3D (like the tongue and balloons) fun.

This cake is going to serve 20-30 at a party tonight, so start with baking two 10" round cakes.  I use the Wilton Bake-Even strips on the outer edge of the pan so the cakes bake nice and level.  Stack the cakes with a layer of frosting between and then crumb coat.  For this cake design, I am going to frost the top and keep the sides a thin crumb coat because the sides will be covered with the petal design.

Here is the inspiration picture I used to create the fondant George.  After cutting the hands from fondant, I just folded the fingers in so George is holding up two fingers for the 2nd birthday.  The other hand has the fingers folded in to hold 2 balloons.

Fondant colors to mix:  brown, tan, black, pink, blue, red, white.  I added more white fondant to the brown to create the tan and black to the brown for the outlines.  To make the balloons appear full, I added a ball of extra fondant under the balloon to keep it rounded.  I use shortening as I am working with fondant to keep it more pliable and smoothed some shortening over George's body for a little sheen.

 It was an easy transfer to the cake since the head and hands are detached from the body.

 For the petal piping, use a large round tip and pipe a large dot of frosting.  Using a spatula or handle of a small rounded metal spoon, press the center of the dot and pull the frosting over.  Pipe dots vertically down the side of the cake and spread each vertical row and repeat around the cake.

You don't have to worry about perfection for the petals, but if you do mess up somewhere or lines start going crooked, just scrape away excess frosting and pick up where you left off.

I like to finish the off last row of dots with candy pearls in the center.  You can see from the front of the cake.

I like to finish the off last row of dots with candy pearls in the center.  You can see here from the front of the cake.

I didn't get to see the birthday girl's reaction, but the parents were pretty thrilled with the cake.