Ok, so this wasn’t really a true cake fail. In all reality, for my first attempt at cake decorating, I’d say it isn’t all that bad.
However, when you compare it to one of my inspiration photos, it’s kind of hard not to notice that my cake might have… ummm… fallen a little short of expectations.
(photo source)
Ok, but let me first back up here and give you the history on how this cake all came to be. A few Sundays ago was Mister E’s birthday. I was planning on having some of his close friends over on Saturday night to help celebrate, but nothing too extravagant. Mister E made sure to let me know that he wanted to keep things low key. Still, I wanted to try to do something to make sure it was a special night.
That’s when I saw Caitlin’s tweet about an iPhone cake.
Did you hear that?
That was the sound of the gears turning in my head.
An iPhone cake? Mister E would LOVE and iPhone cake! You have to understand, the man has a very unnatural obsession with tech gadgets. And when I say unnatural, what I really mean is that he watches tech videos in his spare time and has a secret desire to own a tech gadget museum one day. Needless to say, when we both got the iPhone in December, he was more than a little giddy. An iPhone cake would be the perfect way to ring in his birthday!
With absolutely no real cake decorating experience to speak of, and only five days to go before the party, I started researching different methods to go about making a phone cake. I won’t go into too much detail, but in summary, here are the different options I came up with:
- Order the cake from a local bakery
- Print an image of an iPhone onto edible paper
- Make all the apps out of fondant
- Draw the apps out using the frozen buttercream transfer method
After careful consideration, I decided to go with option #4, the frozen buttercream transfer method. I found quite a few examples of cakes decorated using this method and they all looked fantastic. The tutorial that I followed basically says that you draw the mirror image of your design with buttercream frosting onto wax paper and then freeze it – in turn making the buttercream frosting easy to transfer onto your cake.
At the early hour of 8 a.m. on the day of the party, I embarked on the very tedious process of making an iPhone cake by first drawing out my template for the phone apps. Using my debit card as a straight edge, I finally came up with a rounded square shape that I was happy with.
Fast forward about an hour or so, and I finally had all of my apps sketched out. As a guide for myself, I labeled each app with the color of frosting I needed to use to color the area in.
Since the tutorial said to use a mirror image of the template, I flipped the sheet of paper over and traced over the design using a black marker. I then taped my template onto a large cutting board and taped a piece of wax paper over it.
The night before, I had made a trip to my beloved Michael’s to stock up on cake decorating supplies which included food coloring, pastry bags, pastry tips, and a buttercream icing mix. I figured using a frosting mix would be an easy shortcut for this step in the decorating process.
After making the icing, I divided it into small bowls and mixed in food coloring using a toothpick and scooped the frosting into pastry bags.
Alright, so this would be the part where I almost abandoned all hope on my cake and stopped taking pictures of the process. Just imagine me tediously piping the icing onto the wax paper over my template using a #2 tip with my pastry bag. I’m not going to lie, it was a pretty hellish experience for me. Fast forward TWO HOURS later, and I finally had my apps completely drawn out (and colored in) with buttercream frosting.
Following the tutorial’s instructions, I placed a second piece of wax paper over my apps and gently pressed down. I then placed the entire cutting board with the apps on it into the freezer.
I then happened to catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror and discovered that my entire mouth was a shade of dark purple from sampling so many shades of colored frosting (along with tangled hair, dark circles under my eyes, and a stained t-shirt). I thought about throwing in the towel on my cake, but thankfully after spending five minutes each with a toothbrush and a hair brush, my teeth and hair were starting to resemble something presentable and my sanity was restored.
Thank goodness, since I need all my wits about me to continue on with the process of making the actual cake.
Do you remember the vanilla bean latte cupcakes that I made for the Pinterest party? iPhones and coffee seem to go hand-in-hand, so I decided to use the same recipe for vanilla bean latte cupcakes and adapt it for a cake. I doubled the recipe for the cake batter and divided it between two 9×13″ pans so that I ended up with two thin cake layers. While the cakes were cooling, I made the espresso filling and the vanilla bean espresso buttercream frosting (without making any adjustments to the original recipe). I spread the espresso filling on top of one of the cake layers and then carefully lifted the second cake layer to place on top of the filling. The frosting recipe resulted in just enough to coat both layers in a thin layer of frosting, which is exactly what I wanted.
Since I didn’t take pictures of the actual decorating process, I’ll do a quick rundown of what happened.
Along with my cake decorating supplies, I had also bought a large container of black fondant at Michael’s the night before. I had considered making my own black fondant, but while researching cakes, I had read that it was incredibly difficult to make since it required a large quantity of black food coloring. At $20, it certainly wasn’t cheap to buy the fondant, but worth it to save the time of trying to make it on my own. Following the instructions on the container, I sprinkled powdered sugar onto my work surface and rolled the fondant out into a large enough shape to cover my entire cake. With the help of a cutting board, I then carefully lifted the fondant up and placed it directly onto my cake with a sigh of relief. I found the fondant pretty easy to work with and just gently pressed it all along the sides of the cake to make sure it was secure before trimming off all the excess. Creases did appear in the fondant once it was on the cake, but I wasn’t sure how to easily smooth them out and was starting to loose my patience with how long the cake was taking me to make.
Using a can of edible silver spray paint (also from Michael’s), I painted the sides of my cake silver and also painted a thick stipe on top to look like the main menu bar. At this point, I was finally starting to believe that the cake stood a chance of turning out right.
But then came the real moment of truth when I finally pulled my buttercream frosting apps out of the freezer. Did my three hours of effort earlier pay off? Was my purple mouth all in vain?
Please ignore the holes in the side of the cake – those are where toothpicks were inserted earlier to prevent the cover from touching the cake.
The verdict?
They were so-so.
My frosting did not freeze smoothly and you could clearly see lines from where it was piped out. In retrospect, I wish I made my own buttercream frosting instead of using a store-bought mix which turned out very stiff. The tutorial did link to a recommended recipe that I would probably use if I were to ever try the buttercream transfer method again.
Another issue with my apps was that the black frosting did not freeze at all, making it impossible to transfer some apps onto the cake. Another one or two apps cracked in the transfer process from being too brittle. All in all, I think I lost four of my originally intended apps.
Before placing the apps onto the cake, I applied a small dab of the remaining store-bought mix buttercream frosting to the back of the apps to make sure that they would stay in place. The last final touch on the cake was to draw the signal strength, time, and battery sign on top and the menu button on the bottom of the cake using a white gel icing pen. I also took a shot glass and pressed it into the fondant to make the menu button look more realistic.
From sketching out my apps to putting the final touches onto the cake – the entire process of making the cake took me FIVE hours!!! I’ve always been interested in learning about cake decorating, but after this experience, I’m not so confident that it’s a hobby I want to pick up.
But let’s get to the important stuff now. How did it taste and, more importantly, what did Mister E think of it???
Well, Mister E loved it! He was certainly surprised and I think he even appreciated it more afterwards when I explained to him how much effort went into making the cake.
As for taste, I was slightly disappointed with the outcome. The cake wasn’t as moist as what I was hoping it would be. Also, the vanilla espresso buttercream frosting seemed to get lost between the cake and fondant. I wish I had doubled the frosting recipe and put on a thicker layer. I would also have liked it if the fondant layer was thinner. When rolling it out, I was afraid to go too thin in the fear that it might tear while I was lifting it up. I suppose working with fondant is something takes practice to get comfortable.
Since the cake was a little bit on the drier side, I felt that it had more of a coffee cake consistency. Having about half of the cake leftover from the party, it was certainly a treat to have a small piece alongside breakfast each morning before work for the following week.
Well, that is until I saw that the fondant had turned my mouth was black and I had to spend five minutes brushing my teeth again. Oh, the sacrifices one is willing to make for cake!
Do you have any experience decorating cakes? Any tips for what would have made this process easier for me?
