Xbox 360 Controller cake with glowing buttons

As you know, I discussed my past cake creations earlier and it was within the comments of that entry that the suggestion came in from my good friend Luis to make an Xbox controller cake. I instantly agreed that would be the perfect idea for my Xbox Live-addicted 11 year-old. It also seemed like it could be do-able with some fondant and a little creativity. So last night, I embarked on the journey to create the ultimate Xbox 360 controller cake! (Thank goodness I had the help of my husband or I’d still be working on it now.)

What I did was make two layers, one chocolate, one yellow, from scratch. While those were cooking I made some marshmallow fondant (ok, a LOT). I made two bags of mini marshmallows worth…which meant I used almost FOUR bags of powdered sugar to get it to stop being sticky. (as usual, click on each picture to see it full-sized)

Home made fondant from melting marshmallows and adding powdered sugar

It was quite the arm workout too. And made an absolutely crazy amount of mess. Once it finally comes together though, it feels like such an accomplishment! I’m really not sure I’d make it again…although I haven’t used store-bought fondant, so I’m not sure if it’s more difficult to work with.

Next I whipped up (literally) some buttercream frosting to go between the layers and on top as a crumb coating before the fondant went on. J. and I made the buttons and such out of fondant (thank goodness he was there to tint it grey because mine looked like melted rainbow sherbet before I called him over). J. also carved the cake to the controller shape…I wasn’t confident enough to attempt that.

The cake, shaped into the controller and covered with fondant

Making the D-pad button

Getting the buttons on

It took a long time to figure out how to get the idea of how I wanted the buttons to look and work in my head, translated into fondant. I wanted to add the shoulder buttons too, even though it’d be on the back of the cake.

The back left and right bumpers and triggers

The hardest part was the Xbox guide button, that glows and shows you which player you are. It is metal-looking with the green X, so I knew I wanted it to be shiny. We played around with a few ideas before I decided to cut up the disposable cake pans and make an X in that, trying to shape it into a button shape too. It could’ve been better, but hey, I am an amateur!

The finished cake - with the actual Xbox controller for comparison

For the A, B, X and Y buttons, I stuck glow sticks in vertically and topped them with gel icing, which I think came out really well. If I tried to write the letters on them, I think it would’ve ruined them so I kept them plain. I also didn’t attempt the Microsoft name or port in the back of the controller. I had to stop somewhere. I know there are some flaws and places where it could look better, but as my first personal attempt with making and working with fondant, I think it’s pretty good. And both kids said “COOOOOL!” so that’s all that really counts. (And the people at the party place asked if I made cakes for a living, so that was nice too.)

It all started with the party invitation...

When we decided on having our daughter’s 9th birthday party at the movies for a showing of “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs” it seemed only right that I’d attempt to make a cake to match – a Spaghetti and Meatballs cake of course!

cooling cakes

First, I baked 2 cakes, one 2-layer yellow cake for the base, and a chocolate cake to be crumbled up and turned into ‘meatballs’. Any kind of cake will do, whatever you prefer. The cake balls do not have to be chocolate cake if you are dipping them in chocolate, but if you don’t want to do that step, chocolate cake will look more authentic. Next I made a buttercream frosting for the ‘spaghetti’, topped it with thinned out strawberry preserves for the ‘sauce’ and added ‘grated cheese’ of white chocolate. You can use any recipe you want for the cakes and frosting, whichever you have tried and liked – even box cake!

scoop out a spot for the 'meatballs'

Once the layer cakes cool, scoop out a little ‘bowl’ shape for the ‘meatballs’ to go in when the cake is frosted. This helps it look more real because real meatballs would sink down into a bowl of spaghetti, not balance on top. A step I missed but would do next time is to also shave down the sides of the cake so it’s more like a hill than a regular cake. That way you don’t have any sharp right angles for the spaghetti to break off on, that happened a lot on my cake.

'spaghetti' frosting

When mixing the buttercream frosting, I added drops of yellow food coloring and about a tablespoon of cocoa powder to give it real spaghetti color. Just make sure the food coloring and cocoa are fully mixed before you add more, just get it to a color that looks like cooked spaghetti to you. I then lightly frosted the cakes so I didn’t have a ton of brown to cover up with the spaghetti. I also plopped a bit of frosting on the bottom of the pasta bowl I used to hold the cakes, so it wouldn’t slip around. Once that’s done, add the frosting to a pastry bag with a round tip (I used a #3 tip, but would probably go up one size next time) or you can use a plastic bag with the corner cut off. Just keep piping it out in a noodle-like pattern until it looks like a bowl of spaghetti.

chocolate cake balls

dipped in chocolate

Next up are the meatballs! For these I used Bakerella’s famous Cake Balls recipe. I’d never tried them, but friends had and swore by their deliciousness. For these I used an instant cake mix, because that’s what the recipe used and I didn’t want to mess these up. The basic idea is crumbling up the cake into a big bowl, adding a can of frosting, mixing together and forming into balls, chilling, then dipping in melted chocolate and letting harden. Oh my, they are SO good. Now normally I’d take great care in dipping them into the chocolate so they were all pretty like on Bakerella, but since these were meatballs, neatness didn’t count and actually made them look more believable. I just used a pack of chocolate chips, but I would not recommend that again because it wasn’t nearly enough and was really hard to use because it hardened up so quick. My friend said candy melts in the craft store work really well.

plain spaghetti & meatballs

Here are the completed meatballs on top of the spaghetti. Just arrange the meatballs however you like. I used a lot, but I knew we’d have a lot of kids at the party and wanted to be sure everyone got a meatball. You can use as few or as many as you want. Just be careful because once you place them, you can’t really move them around, the spaghetti frosting will be crushed. Needs some tomato sauce, yes?

with added 'tomato sauce'

For the sauce, thin out some strawberry preserves with water, heating if needed to stir it up, just be sure to cool it back down before pouring it on the cake, or you’ll melt all that great spaghetti! Of course you don’t have to use sauce at all if you have guests that don’t care for strawberry or other fruit on their cake! I took a risk using it with my kids, but they let it slide this once.

The finished product - with 'grated cheese'!!

We got some crazy looks walking into the movie theatre with a giant bowl of spaghetti and meatballs. I told my husband we should’ve announced “We’re here for the Pot Luck!” The person in charge of our party actually said – “what IS that?” I guess curiosity got the better of her wondering why people would bring hot food to a kids birthday party in a movie theatre. Once she found out it was a cake, she thought it was hilarious.

The cake also received the 9-10 year-old seal of approval and they all thought it was the coolest thing ever to be able to eat dinner for dessert. It really wasn’t too hard to make, I’d recommend it to anyone that wants a unique spin on a traditional birthday cake. The reaction is definitely worth it!! Oh! And the movie was really great too – really funny, great 3-D effects. Steve the Monkey (voiced by The NPH) steals the show.

the birthday girl seal of approval!