I am having my son's 2nd birthday party in a little over a week. It will be a small group of people - at most 20 people including the little ones. It will be a monkey theme. I haven't yet decided on a cake shape, but I know it will have blue and yellow dots on white frosting and a monkey face to match the party theme.

I usually make DH boxed cake mix and add in the extra egg and oil to make pound cake. I figure since it is a small group I would have to pick between chocolate and yellow (often do both). I generally frost with Buttercream Dream frosting.

But, because it is a monkey themed party, I was thinking of making a banana cake. I want to frost with white frosting since the monkey face will be chocolate. Somehow when I think banana cake, I would naturally put it with chocolate frosting, although I have seen that people will often use cream cheese frosting with banana cake.

Also, I have thought about making a 9" round chocolate cake decorated as above, and then making banana cupcakes with chocolate frosting and piping bananas on them for the kids. Probably more cake than I need, but gives me choices.

So...long winded way of asking - what do you think I should do? Cake flavor? Frosting? Size/shape of cake? Should I try new recipes or stick with what I know we like?

My vote is for the 9" chocolate round with banana cupcakes. I think your design idea is really cute, especially decorating the cupcakes with miniature bananas. I say better to have more cake. You can always send some home with guests, but I doubt you'll have much left over (despite what the serving size says). It's always fun to try new recipes so I say "Go for it!" I think most people like chocolate, so if anyone doesn't like the banana, you're still good.

Especially if you have 2 diff flavors, and they are delish, you may not even have extras! And it all sounds so cute

Anyone have a good (and easy) banana cake recipe? Preferably a small recipe - at this point there are 5 kids coming (and some of them would eat the chocolate cake). I guess I could always make extras and freeze.

I used the WASC recipe adding banana pudding with banana extract. You can cut that recipe in half.

galliesway - thanks for the suggestion. I shy away from the WASC recipe because I know a lot of people with nut allergies. I myself am not allergic to almonds, but are sensitive to them. It is unfortunate, because everyone swears by that recipe. I do like the idea of using banana pudding!

Oh, and when I was telling my DH about what I was thinking about, he thought I should put a banana cream filling between the cake layers. Any recipes for that? I would tend towards a milder banana taste over a very strong one. Thanks!

I'm sorry I don't have a banana recipe for you, but I just wanted to let you know you could use a synthetic almond extract to make the WASC if you want to try it. I used it when I made a cake for a friend who has severe tree nut allergies. It still turned out delicious! I used the Wilton brand that comes in a bottle that looks like this.

http://www.coppergifts.com/ProductCart/pc/viewPrd.asp?idproduct=4057&welcome=315

I hope you're able to find a good recipe you like for the party.

I don't ever use almond extract I just use the base and other flavor versions which I believe many do. I just remembered that I also used 1/2 of a mashed banana in the mix. Here's a link for the cream filling I haven't used it personally. I would use Bettercreme and add banana pudding if you have it available.

http://www.easy-cake-ideas.com/buttercream-filling.html

For banana cake i always use 3 mashed bananas as this gives it the right amount of flavour and makes the cake lovely and moist x