Cute Monkey Cupcakes

Saturday was the first birthday of Max, my bff's little boy and my unofficial nephew. I adore this kid (and his mom) so I was more than willing to help when asked. The idea for these came from my friend looking up "monkey cupcakes" (Max's nickname is monkey and that was the party theme) on photobucket and then piecing together the ideas she liked.

These were so incredibly easy to make. We used cake mixes because they are easy, fast, and kids love them. We also used frosting in a can, she bought whipped chocolate frosting and it was so incredibly easy to use. The nose/mouth of the monkey is a Vanilla Wafer with just a tiny little bit of one side cute off. The ears are 100 Calorie Nutter Butters cut in half and the eyes are upside down M&MS. Then you just use icing to make your eyes, nose and mouth (eyes and nose are black, mouth is red).

The only problem we had with these is that the ears got a little soggy. The one she saw used regular Nutter Butters for the ears, and we determined that these probably don't get soggy because they are much thicker than the 100 calorie version and have the filling. So I'd recommend either using the original NB cookie or putting the 100 cal version on closer to serving (we made these the day before). 

These were a huge hit. Everyone kept asking where she got them and couldn't believe we made them. Max seemed to think they looked neat but was way too excited about his own personal smash cake to pay too much attention. Happy birthday Max!