DIY Xbox Cake

This past August we celebrated my brother's birthday. I really wanted to make an awesome age appropriate cake that he would love. My little brother plays video games...a lot of video games. I figured anything Xbox related would make him a very happy boy. Needless to say he loved the cake. What's not to love about a sugary, buttery, chocolaty Xbox shaped confection. I started writing this post months ago but forgot about it in my drafts folder, oops. Without further delay here is a simple how to tutorial for a DIY Xbox Controller cake.

First I baked two 9x13 inch rectangular chocolate cakes, iced the middle, and layered them. Then I took an image of the Xbox controller as a template and carefully cut out the shape.

I copied and pasted the jpg image into Word, set the page to landscape, and expanded the image to fit the entire 8.5"x11" size page. This fits pretty good with the cake size I used. I printed and cut out the image and used a sharp knife to start shaping the cake. I had to use skewers to keep the paper in place.

 Now it's time to make a simple vanilla hazelnut butter cream. For the butter cream I used a recipe that I found online. To make this you'll need the following ingredients.

Ingredients

3 cups confectioners' sugar
1 cup butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons whipping cream

A splash of Amaretto Hazelnut Liqueur

Directions

Mix sugar and butter until well blended.

Add vanilla, amaretto liqueur, and whipping cream and continue to beat.

I then iced the cake with freshly made butter cream and let it sit in the fridge for about 30 minutes.

While the cake sits in the refrigerator I worked on getting the fondant pieces organized. The fondant was a somewhat simple marshmallow fondant recipe that I found online. I used a second printout of my stencil to make all the buttons and joysticks the correct size. All buttons were created out of fondant that I colored to match the buttons on the actual controller. It's pretty simple to color the fondant. I used McCormick's liquid food color. Using a toothpick I brushed off a bit of the coloring to the fondant making sure not to pock holes into the fondant. I then kneaded it and eventually the color evens out and your once white fondant changes to your desired color. All the buttons were cut using cookie cutters. The smaller pieces I had to use the circles in some letter cutters that I had.

The actual 'X' dome I used a tablespoon-size measuring spoon and stuffed it with white fondant and used 2 green strips of fondant to form the "X". I used the end of a skewer to poke out 4 dots on the grey buttons. I used a knife to etch out a triangle 'play' symbol on the little white buttons. All of the  pieces were cut, shaped, and left to dry overnight.

Using the actual controller as a model, I placed the fondant buttons in the correct positions on the cake. I then piped the details on the buttons using butter cream. Using the actual controller as a model, I placed the 3-D fondant joysticks in the correct positions on the cake.

Don't forget the white rings around the buttons and the grey ring around the 'X' dome. This adds a bit more detail and realness to the look. I then carefully piped white icing for the letters on the buttons.

Bon Appetit!