Amanda's iPhone Cake

My 10 year old niece wanted an iPhone for her birthday. Her dad said “NO, absolutely positively NO”, so I made her an iPhone cake instead. She got a kick out of it, and her friends did too.



I can't believe it, but this is the first decorated cake that I’ve made in over a year and a half. It has been a rough, rough 18 months. To emotional and upsetting to think about decorating cakes, but I’m hoping and praying that things will get better.

Anyway the cake is half red velvet and half chocolate fudge. I made the app icons out of polymer clay and the rest of the decorations are made from Wilton’s fondant. Yuck!! I think that stuff tastes like flavorless wax, but a kid at the party actually loved the stuff. Weird kid.



Here are the app icons coming together. The assembly wasn't hard, but it was very time consuming. I think I spent about 8 hours making all the 17 app icons. My favorite is the "Map". It has little tiny roads, an interstate sign, and a red push pin. Too cute.

TWD: Golden Brioche Loaves

Dorie Greenspan's Golden Brioche Loaves have long been on my baking "to do" list, but it took Margie of Tea and Scones to push it to the top of my baking agenda. Margie selected the recipe for Tuesdays with Dorie's weekly baking assignment. Check out Margie's blog for the recipe and TWD for other version of this French classic.

So how did my first attempt at Brioche go??
Well not too bad, it baked up slightly darker than "golden", but it still had a great taste and light, pillowy texture.

So here it the life cycle of my Brioche (in pictures of course)...

Step 1: Yeast, water, milk, flour, and salt after a few quick pulses.


Step 2: Add the eggs.


Step 3: Add the butter, a little bit at a time. This step took FOREVER. Who would have thought it would take so long to incorporate the butter into the dough.


Step 4: All the butter incorporated into the dough. Beat for about 10 minutes till the dough pulls away from the side of the bowl.


Step 5: Transfer to a bowl, and let the "rising" begin.


Step 6: A few hours later, let the "rising" end.


Step 7: Cut the dough into two (or four) equal pieces. (I didn't have two 8 1/2 x 4 1/2 loaf pans so I used four mini pans. ) Cut each piece of dough into 4 equal pieces and roll into logs.


Step 8: Arrange 4 logs crosswise in the bottom of each pan. Sticky, sticky dough.


Step 9: Leave the dough at room temperature until the dough almost fills the pans. Oops, my loaves rose a little too much.

Step 10: Bake the loaves until golden brown. I cooked mine for about 25 minutes and they came out a bit too brown and a little dry. So next time I would stop at about 20 minutes.



So like I said, a little dry and a little too brown, but not half bad for my first loaf of Golden Brioche!!!