When I was little, this short, hairy, googly-eyed monster would follow me around everywhere. I'm not sure where he went when we weren't having fun together, but he certainly wasn't hiding under my bed since that's where all the alligators hung out, waiting to snack on unsuspecting ankles dangling over the edge of the bed during the night. And he liked ice cream and hopscotch and occasionally glowed in the dark. Yeah, my monster was pretty cool.
And boy did he love a party! So be sure to invite him to your next Halloween bash or birthday party!
If you'd like to invite Fuzzbucket to your next Halloween bash, first bake your favorite cake in small round cake pans. You want a lot of layers here to give the monster some height. I used three 6-inch round cake pans and sliced each layer in half. You may need to double the recipe if you have a bigger cake. You'll also need two cake pop eyeballs. (Check out this post on Cake Pops for instructions.) For the monster cake, I dipped the back of each eyeball in colored dipping chocolate to create eyelids instead of drawing bloodshot veins to make them a bit more friendly looking.
So, bake cake as directed. Once cooled, fill the cake and give it a crumb coating. Allow this to set. And now for the fun part!
Monster Fuzz Buttercream Icing (aka Crusting Buttercream) [click to print]
1/2 c. butter
1/4 c. shortening
6 c. powdered sugar
1/4 tsp. salt
2 tsp. vanilla
3-4 T. milk
Green gel food coloring
Yellow gel food coloring
Whip butter and shortening in mixing bowl until combined. Add sugar, salt, vanilla. Mix on low speed, slowly adding milk, a tablespoon at a time, until you reach desired consistency. You want this stuff to be fairly stiff; try holding the bowl upside down over your head, if the frosting doesn't threaten to drip onto your hair, you're good!
Measure about 1-1/2 cups of frosting into a separate bowl and add yellow food coloring until it's blindingly yellow. Like the sun. Scoop into pastry bag. Color the remaining frosting bright green. Frost your cake with a thin layer of green buttercream (you only want monster skin to shine through that fuzz!) and scoop the remaining green frosting into a separate pastry bag. Fit your green pastry bag with a grass tip; I used the Wilton 233 Multi-Opening Decorating Tip.
Make a second row of green fuzz about 1-1/2 inches above your first, overlapping the first layer by about 1/2 inch. Next do one row of yellow fuzz using the same size decorating tip. Follow this by two more rows of green fuzz. Your final row of yellow fuzz will be mostly on top of the cake, with about a 1/2 inch overhang onto the monster body. To cover the top of the monster head with fuzz, squeeze out strings of frosting and attach in concentric circles, slightly overlapping each row until the top is completely covered.
I know your hand is tired and shaky now from squeezing that silly pastry bag for so long, but hang in there! The last thing you need to do is poke those eyeball cake pops into the top of the monster body and you're done!
Source: Inspired by Sugar Turntable and Shindig Diva
