Football Cake!!

For my friend Robert's 20th Birthday I decided to bake something. But couldn't quite figure out what. After a week of figuring what to do, I became inspired from a cake idea in the'Women's weekly Kids Party Cakes' book.

I used the (Thunder Cake Recipe) for this cake, as seen on my previous blog post when I made the Domo-Kun cake . This time I doubled the recipe and baked it in a lasagne dish. The recipe outline in the book states to use a 26cm x 36cm baking dish. I baked the cake and made the icing the night before.

For the icing I used colouring paste, instead of normal food colouring and that is for 2 reasons. 
1. When using food colouring (which is a liquid) it changes the consistency of the cream cheese icing.
2. Colouring paste provides a stronger colour.

If you want a more intense colour for the icing it is better to leave refrigerated over night. I am not sure how this work but it does. My green went from a light green , to a lush lawn green.

**NOTE** Colouring paste can be bought from any good cake retailers or chef stores.

I had to cut the side of the cake to produce a perfect rectangle

Crumb Coat

The purpose of a crumb coat is to stick all the crumbs to the icing, so when the proper layer of icing is placed there are no crumbs on the cake. Refrigerate the cake for 20-30 minutes (minimum) to ensure the cake is sealed.

Display layer

After I put on the proper layer of icing I refrigerated the cake for another 30 minutes. During that time I made a few of the decorations for the cake.

I made the football from hard white icing, and the shoes from red fondant. 
Football: I rolled white icing into an egg shape and drew black lines using black writing icing (from a tube).
Shoes: I rolled red fondant into elongated ovals. For the foot groove, I created an indent using a cotton tip. Using the writing icing again, I drew black stripes.

Football, shoes and posts

Goal Posts: I wrapped white icing around Pocky (well a biscuite that was similar to Pocky called Lotte), and using a rolling action (as if the Lotte was a rolling pin) I evenly spread the white icing across the stick. I did the same action with the red icing.
Now comes the fun part, cake presentation! =D

To get the grass effect I used a flat head whisk. But anything with a few spikes will work such as a fork or toothpicks. In the book it says to colour sugar green, but I think this provides a better effect.

 Using white fudge writing icing I drew the field lines.

Almost there...

Finished product!

I hope Robert and everyone at the birthday enjoyed the cake.

Good food, good times!