The iCake

Geoff turned 30 last November!

To celebrate, I made a cake that paid tribute to his favorite gadget: the iPhone. This phone is awesome. It does everything! Well, maybe everything except for turning itself into dessert for a dozen of your closest friends. (Please tell me there's not an app for that.)

The iCake took 2 days to make. This is not counting the time I spent researching what an iPhone looks like. Oh yeah, it should be noted that I was doing all of this in secrecy, as I wanted it to be a surprise for Geoff.

How would I get a good look at his phone without him getting suspicious? I don't normally take an interest in things that are high-tech (in fact, I usually run the other way).

Ultimately I realized that Geoff and his iPhone were inseparable; I would have to accept this and find another strategy. Lucky for me, our roommate Khoi had just purchased his own iPhone. Once I was able to spend some time with his phone and the manual that came with it, I was in business.





If you have an iPhone, you may notice that the weather, date, and time are slightly different. This is because I wanted it to show what the conditions were like at the start of the epic 30th birthday party occurring that night.

I got a huge kick out of making this, if for no other reason than I got to go old-school, baking a cake in a 9 x 13 pan. Hadn't done that in a long time. I decided to use that particular pan because it has slightly rounded corners (just like an iPhone), which meant less work when it came time to decorate.

Details on the cake:

Inside: Carrot cake. I used the Joy of Cooking recipe. It was kind of disappointing to me, tasting a little too much like baking powder. (Didn't stop me from having 3 pieces....) I have a much better recipe from school.

Frosting: Basic chocolate buttercream. To get it that shade of black, I used 2 canisters of food-grade spray paint over the course of two days. Spray; dry; repeat. Gets a little darker with each application.

Icons: Fondant. These were a labor of love. It was kind of fun at the party, though. Everyone got to pick the icon they wanted for their slice. I was amazed that so many people actually had a preference.

Writing: Royal icing. I really should have thinned it out a little with corn syrup. This particular batch just did not want to be written with (usually my cake penmanship is much nicer).

Border: Foil, attached with frosting "glue."