Creation of the iPhone Cake, in pictures…sort of.

For those of you who are friends with me on Facebook, you may recall the iPhone cake I uploaded about a month ago.

This cake got more reviews and likes than I’d ever expected to receive, so I thought a few of you wonderful people would be interested in seeing how the cake was made. :)

About a week or so before my dad’s birthday, his iPhone fell on the ground and the screen was massively cracked (thankfully it was still functioning…until we tried to fix the screen. Another story for another time.) At the time, I was still trying to decide what kind of cake to bake my dad, and that’s when I got the idea: an iPhone cake! My dad adored his iPhone, and how flipping awesome would that be?

Then I realized I had never worked with fondant in my entire life, and although this cake didn’t turn out all too difficult, it was pretty daunting for a beginner such as myself. After days of research, and countless “how to work with fondant” video tutorials, I decided that I was ready (ish).

Below I’ve compiled the steps I took to make the cake, with a couple of pictures for your visual pleasure. Obviously I didn’t include everything I did…because I kind of have no ideait will probably bore you.

If you’re a fondant expert, please feel free to give me some tips. I’m such an amateur.

Pre-Step Steps I took:

1) Decide on what cake you’re going to bake, and think about how you plan on decorating it. Don’t over think it though, because you’ll probably be improvising a lot of the time.

2) Watch a lot of how-to tutorials.

3) Make your own fondant, or buy your own at least the day before you decide to make the cake.

4) You’re going to need a few general supplies such as a fondant smoother, fondant rolling pin. They’re not necessary but they sure do make life a whole lot easier.

5) Make free time. You’ll need it.

Step #1: Bake the cake. Don’t worry if the cake’s cracked like mine is–that’s what the next step is for. ;)

Step #2: Crumb coat the cake with frosting of choice. This will act as both a “glue” to the fondant and a concealer to hide any imperfections. Before crumbcoating, you can also cut your cake in half and put buttercream in between to add moisture.

Step #3: Place the crumb-coated cake in the fridge for at least 2 hours. Me being my slightly dyslexic self, did Steps #2 and #3 in the wrong order…I put the cake in the fridge first and then crumb-coated it. Horrible mistake… unless you want a super dry cake.
(That rhymed!).

Step #4: Get all your fondant ready (Note: As stated in the pre-step steps above, the fondant should be made and/or bought before you make the cake, but prepared/shaped/rolled out after so it doesn’t dry out).

I made my own fondant with marshmallow fluff + powdered sugar the day before, rolled it into a ball, and placed it in the fridge the day before. SO easy! Then I used food coloring to color the fondant. Unfortunately I don’t have any pictures of the food coloring process, otherwise my camera would be technicolored. I had to wear plastic gloves.

Step #5: Generously and I mean generously cover your counter top/ wooden board with powdered sugar. Take it from someone who nearly broke down in tears when the fondant kept sticking to the dang board.

Step #6: Roll out your “main” fondant. In this case, I used store-bought buttercream black fondant (If you want to save money, make your own fondant and only buy fondant if you need the colors red or black, since these are practically impossible to make with a small amount of dye. See? I learned stuff!). Place fondant over cake, and smooth it out.

Step #7: Shape your other fondant and decorate! :)

Of course the pictures probably make the process look like butterflies and rainbows… but man oh man was this time-consuming. And so many little obstacles along the way!

The most annoying challenges of making the iPhone cake:

1) Rolling the black fondant to place over the cake. This was so frustrating I was about to break down in tears–the shape was really difficult to get, since it had to cover a rectangle, and when I did finally get the shape, I couldn’t lift it without it sticking to the wooden board. After a few more tries, I realized all I had to do was make sure the board wasgenerously covered in powdered sugar so the fondant won’t stick.

2) Coloring the fondant. It wasn’t really difficult as it was annoying (On the plus side, I totally relearned my color wheel).

3) Making the icons was kind of tiring as well….and deciding which icons to use (if you know me, you know I’m the most indecisive person in the universe).

In spite of all these things, I’d totally do it again. :)

UPDATE:

Someone (who lives in Egypt) asked me to put details of what cake I used/ how I made the fondant. Here’s a little detail for those who want it:

I made a normal cake using this recipe:
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Black-Magic-Cake/Detail.aspx (you don’t have to add the coffee if you don’t want to). But you can use any recipe you want. A pound cake recipe would be good, because the cake needs to be strong.

Then for the fondant, I bought the black fondant. I’m not sure where you can find it in Egypt, unfortunately… It’s really hard to make black fondant (practically impossible, especially for the amount you need), so I’m not sure exactly how you can do do the iPhone cake without it…
If you can’t find the black fondant, then try picking out a different cake to make. There’s so much stuff you can do with fondant!

For the colored fondant, I made it myself with something called marshmallow fluff. That’s most likely not in Egypt either, but very it’s easy to make using marshmallows and powdered sugar.
Here’s a link to the recipe for the fondant:
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Marshmallow-Fondant/Detail.aspx

I’m sorry I didn’t give too much detail, it’s just that there’s a LOT of steps to working with fondant and I didn’t want to confuse anyone.
Just make sure you watch a lot of How-To fondant tutorials in order to work with the fondant.

Here’s how to color the fondant:
http://www.wilton.com/decorating/fondant/coloring-fondant.cfm

And some videos I watched for how to work with fondant:
http://monkeysee.com/play/15845-how-to-decorate-a-cake-with-fondant
http://monkeysee.com/play/986-cake-decorating-how-to-crumb-coat

Insha’Allah next time I work with fondant I’ll have a REAL step-by-step thing on how to do it…it’s just that I didn’t have time to get organized for the blog and everything.
Good luck you guys! If you have any more questions just ask on the blog (so other people can see the answers) and I’ll do my best to answer them :)