Monkey Brownies Birthday Cake and Animal Brownie Bites

My youngest son turns two this week and one of his favorite words is Monkey.

 He says... "Monkey Ooo Ooo Ahh Ahh"

So when I decided on an animal party I figured a monkey cake was the way to go. Only problem... He doesn't really like cake, or many bread products. I almost considered fudge or an ice cream cake but I have known him to enjoy moist chewy brownies so I went with the brownie idea instead of traditional cake. Decorating fudge and ice cream just is not as much fun.

Here is his monkey. Just a little one for him, but I am sure he will share, the ears are chocolate covered mini doughnuts. I baked the main part in a small bowl and cut away the sides a tiny bit for the doughnut ears.

Homemade peanut butter frosting made a good complementary brown color for the mouth area and our guests are all family and I know there are not any peanut allergies. (don't ask for the recipe, I kind of dumped and stirred until it looked and tasted ok. Chocolate chips for eyes and mini chocolate chips for his nose.

But of course there is more brownie mix left, so we went with mini cupcake sized brownie bites for the guests. I used the mini muffin tin and birthday cupcake liners.
I needed to get in the rest of the animals somehow for the animal party theme. So I tossed on some standing animal crackers and some sprinkles for a bit of color, which really fit with the animal cracker theme too since the frosted ones, (which I didn't have on hand) have the same ball sprinkles on them.

Didn't know what I was going to make last night and now I am done. I like how everything turned out. It is all sealed up and in the freezer ready for the weekend.