Calling all Curious George fans. If you love that adorable monkey or maybe your kids do, make this awesome Curious George cake for their next birthday, or just because!
After seeing my lego man cake a friend of mine asked me if I could come up with a Curious George cake for her son who was turning 2 years old in a few days. He was obsessed with Curious George. I thought sure, why not it would be fun to make him a cute Curious George cake.
The process is fairly simple and you follow the same techniques as I show in the lego man cake and the Spiderman cake. You don’t need a ton of experience working with fondant either. A novice fondant worker should be able to do this. If I can do it, you can do it. Let’s get baking and decorating!
Step 1: Gather the ingredients
In order to make a homemade Curious George cake you need several ingredients and items, all of which are pretty easy to find:
- Cake mix or homemade cake – Along with the ingredients to make it. I have several homemade cakes here on my blog.
- Frosting – Use storebought or homemade buttercream frosting either vanilla or chocolate.
- White Fondant – Use storebought or use homemade marshmallow fondant.
- Black Fondant
- Browing Icing Color – Or you can also buy brown and flesh-colored fondant as well.
The fondant and icing color can be found online or at places like Walmart.
Tools
- Curious George Face (from the internet)
- 10inch cake pan (could use a smaller or larger one)
- Cake Board (I covered my with foil)
- Pizza roller
- Knife
- Cake Knife
- Cake spatula
- Fondant Smoother
- Toothpicks
- Scissors
- Small round cookie cutter, or Tablespoon/Teaspoon
- Rolling pin or Fondant Rolling Pin
Step 2: How to make a Curious George cake
Begin by wrapping a cake board in foil or parchment paper if you like. Or you can use the cake board plain or not worry about a board and just use a cake pedestal.
Bake the cake in a 10-inch round cake pan according to the instructions on the box for a cake mix or any number of homemade cakes. Allow the cake to cool completely and then level it off. If you wrap a damp cake strip around the cake pan it won’t dome as much when it bakes.
While the cake is cooling down go online and find an image of Curious George’s face that you like. Take the image and paste it onto to a word document and scale it to fit the image. I use landscape mode for the paper. You may find one that is already a perfect size and you can just print it out.
Cut the stencil out from the paper with scissors. Place the Curious George face stencil on the cake and then cut around it with a knife.
You may wind up with one of the ears, not on the cake. If so, you can make one with the excess cake trimmings and glue it on with frosting on the side of the cake. Save the leftover cake scraps, you can just eat them, or make cake pops or cakesicles with them.
You will be left with a rough shape of his head. Now, cover the cake with frosting. You can use store-bought or a homemade frosting. This will add flavor to the cake, as well as act like glue for the fondant.
Time to move onto the fondant decorating. This part will take the majority of your time, but it won’t take too long.
Step 2: Working with the fondant
Take a large chunk of the white fondant and knead it in your hands until it is soft. Then add in a few drops of the brown icing color and knead that into the fondant which will change the color to a nice brown color which will be the outer part of Curious George’s face.
Now roll the fondant out into a large circle with a rolling pin and then lay it on top of the cake. Smooth it out so it forms all around the cake. You can use your hands or a handy fondant smoother tool.
Then trim the excess fondant off from the cake with a pizza roller, fondant cutter, or knife. Just ball the scraps of leftover fondant up.
Take another smaller chunk of fondant and add only one or two drops of the icing color, which will color it a much lighter brown or tan color. Again, knead the color in. Roll that part as well, it should be about 1/8th inch thick or so.
Cut the face part out of the stencil and place it on the rolled out tan fondant. Cut around the stencil leaving you with a face shape. Place that on top of the cake how you want it.
These are the two main base colors for the Curious George cake head and face. All you need to do down are the details to create the rest of his face.
Cut out the ears from the stencil and lay those on top of the tan fondant. Cut them out with a knife and then place the ears on the cake.
Now cut the eyes out of the face stencil. Place the stencil on the cake so you know where the eyes are supposed to go.
Roll out some white fondant and then place the eye stencils on it, and cut around it. Or if you have a small round cookie cutter or round tablespoon or something that will work as well.
Place the white eyes on the cake. If they have trouble sticking, use a tiny bit of water. The water will act as glue, so the fondant will stick better to the other fondant.
Next do the exact same thing with the pupils. Roll out some black fondant, then cut out a round pupil and place those on top of the white eyes.
The only thing that is left now is do put on the mouth and nose and dark outlines. Using the stencil as a guide, roll out long thin pieces of black fondant and then put them in place. Again, use a bit of water as glue if needed. Just use a small paint brush or a toothpick to put the water on.
And there you go! The amazing Curious George cake is done and ready to be used however you like. The kids will go crazy over this cake.
How long does the Curious George Cake last?
If you cover the cake with plastic wrap or foil or store it in an airtight container, it will last 5 to 7 days, although it will taste the freshest before then.
Here are some other recipes you may like:
Curious George Cake
Equipment
- Curious George Face (from the internet)
- 10inch cake pan (could use a smaller or larger one)
- 12inch Cake Board (I covered my with foil)
- Pizza roller
- Knife
- Cake Knife
- cake spatula
- Fondant Smoother
- Toothpicks
- Scissors
- Small round cookie cutter, or Tablespoon/Teaspoon
- Rolling Pin or Fondant Rolling pin
Ingredients
- Cake mix or homemade cake plus the extra ingredients
- 1 cup Frosting I used chocolate buttercream, may need a bit more or a little less
- 2 cups White Fondant may need more or a little less the 1.5lb (680g) box works great
- 4 oz. Black Fondant won’t use it all (124g)
- Several drops of Brown Icing Color
Instructions
- Begin by baking the cake, use a cake mix along with the extra ingredients or make it from entirely from scratch, I have several cake recipes here. Bake it in a 10-inch round cake pan. Grease the pan with shortening and dust it with flour. Once the cake comes out of the oven allow it to cool completely.
- Find a Curious George face that you like, online, then take the image and scale it up to fit an 8.5 x 11 piece of paper. Then print it out.
- Cover a 12-inch cake board with aluminum foil (optional)
- Place the cake on the cake board and then level it with a knife. If you use a damp cake strip around the cake pan while baking, you may not need to level it much.
- Now, place the Curious George stencil on top of the cake, and cut around the stencil, making a rough shape. Make sure to save the trimmings!
- One of the ears didn't fit on the cake, so take a chunk of cake and trim around it in the shape of an ear, use the stencil for that. Then glue it on the side of the head with some frosting.
- Frost the whole cake with your frosting.
- Knead the white fondant. Then separate two pieces from the main part. We will use that for the eyes and the face. Now take the big chunk of fondant and add some brown icing color, I just use a toothpick to add it.Knead the color in until uniform. Add more as desired to get the color of brown you want.
- Now roll out the fondant, you will want it to be a few inches in diameter bigger than your cake. Place it on the cake and smooth it out with your clean hands, fingers, or fondant smoother tool. Then trim the excess with a knife or pizza roller.
- Take the smaller chunk of white fondant, add a little coloring, and knead it to create a tan color fondant. Now roll that part out. Then cut the face from the stencil, and place on top of our fondant. Trim it away with the pizza roller or a knife then place that on top of the cake where you want it.
- Next, cut away the ears from the stencil, roll out some fondant, and trim around the ears. Then place those on the cake.
- Now, roll out some white fondant, then cut out the eyes from the stencil. You can cut around it, or use a Tablespoon, small lid, or small round cookie cutter to cut out the eyes. Then place those on the cake.
- Next, cut out some small round black pupils for the eyes, from the black fondant.
- Finally, using black fondant, roll out small thin long pieces, to use for all the outlines, the nose, mouth, etc. If you need to, use a little bit of water as glue to hold the strips in place, especially around the chin area. Now you are done! It is a bit tedious but definitely worth the time! Enjoy!
Video
Notes
Nutrition
Do you like this recipe? Pin it! And please give it a rating and comment down below, I really appreciate it. If you make it tag me on Instagram @inthekitchenwithmatt. Also, sign up for the newsletter so you won’t miss out on any of my new posts and recipes.
So easy to recreate! My son is obsessed with Curious George. We have all the books, even a Curious George Build A Bear and backpack!
That is awesome, Trang!! 🙂
This is adorable!
Thank you so much, April! 🙂
This looks fantastic! Can’t wait to try it.
Thank you, Katie! 🙂
very nice and delicious recipe are we use the cheese cream or butter cream both for frosting???
Thank you! You can use whatever kind of frosting you want to go over the cake before adding the fondant. 🙂
So cute!! I also appreciate that you have an option to jump to the recipe– actually the first time I’ve seen that done! Hopefully it catches on, lol!
Thank you, Adrianne! 🙂 There is other information that is valuable, and the pictures of the steps are shown, but yes that “jump to recipe” is a nice feature, haha. 🙂