Fancy making a football cake for birthday? Here is an easy football cake design you can try. This is a simple round cake with edible football decoration on top of the cake. This football cake is covered in fondant and decorated with royal icing in black, white and green.
This is a fairly easy cake to decorate. You can make this football cake without any mold and there is also no carving required. All you need is a round cake tin and a football template for the cake top.
To make this football cake design, you bake the cake in a round tin, and crumb coat it with buttercream. And then you cover the cake with white fondant. For the cake top, you will need a football template. You can draw this on your own or search for an image on the internet. You can place the template on the cake top and trace the lines with a sugar craft knife.
If you like this cake, you should also check out these soccer cupcakes, football themed Viking cupcakes and Spartans birthday cake (a football club cake).
🧾Supplies Required
- 1 round cake – I used an 8 inch round cake. I baked my chocolate cake into two 8 inch round pans and stacked them together with chocolate buttercream. The cake came to a height of 4 inches after stacking.
- White fondant
- Buttercream (for crumb coat and to fill the cake layers)
- Royal icing in white and black (for the ball design) and green (for grass on the sides of the cake.
- Wilton round tip number 3
- Sugar craft knife
- Football template
- Piping bags
👩🍳How to Make
Step 1: Bake the Cake
I started off with the usual stuff – I baked the cakes and let them cool completely before starting with the stacking and decorating.
Once the cakes have cooled down completely, I leveled the cakes and filled the layers with buttercream. I then covered the entire cake with a thin coat of buttercream as the crumb coat.
Next, I covered the whole cake with white fondant. I made sure the edges were nice and sharp with my fondant smoothers. I don’t particularly like to have ganache underneath the fondant and that is simply because ganache does quite set as well in the kind of climate I live in. So I normally settle for a thin crumb coat of buttercream on all my cakes and then use the fondant smoothers to sharpen my cake edges.
Step 2: Prepare the Football Template
I drew the football template on a piece of paper. To do it, I used my cake tin and traced a circle in the same size as the cake diameter (you can use your cake tin and draw its outline on a paper). Once I had the diameter, starting from the center, I drew a hexagon, followed by straight lines out, then a whole set of 5 hexagons and then some horizontal lines connecting all those hexagons. To make it easier to draw the football pattern, draw out the hexagon shape on a piece of paper and cut it out along its outline.
Use that hexagon to trace the first hexagon shape right in the centre. This will be the black hexagon in the center. And then use the same hexagon template to guide you in drawing out the remaining 5 semi hexagons towards the edges of the circle. And finally, join the pointed corners of each hexagon with one another. Once you have the template all drawn out, cut it out.
If drawing the image is too complicated for you, you can always print an image off the internet. Simply resize it to ensure it fits perfectly onto the top of your cake.
Step 3: Trace the Football Design onto the Cake
Once I had the football template, I traced it onto the top of the fondant covered cake. To do this, I used my favorite tool, the sugarcraft knife.
I placed the template on the cake, and then using my sugarcraft knife, I cut along the lines on the template.
You wouldn’t want to use all your strength when cutting through the lines, the idea is to mark the lines on the fondant and not cut the fondant through.
Step 4: Pipe the Edible Football Cake Decoration
Next is the icing. I used black royal icing with Wilton tip #3 and drew outlines of all the hexagons.
Then I filled up the center hexagon with black icing in a circular motion. I did not thin the royal icing, I wanted the lines to be visible. I continued with the remaining 5 hexagons.
Once done, I filled the rest of the empty hexagons with white royal icing, also in a circular motion following the shape of the hexagons.
Step 5: Decorate the Cake Sides
Finally, I covered the sides of the cake with green icing in random zig-zag patterns, letting some of the icing extend up to the sides of the football for a natural ‘football in the grass’ effect.
And that’s it. My step by step tutorial for an easy football cake design, perfect for birthday.
❤️More Designs You Will Love
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📖Recipe
Football Cake Design
Equipment
- Football template
- Piping tip #3
- Piping bags
- Sugarcraft knife
- Food coloring in black and green
For best results, use the metrics measurements. US customary measurements have not been tested and are only meant for guide.
Ingredients
Cake
- 480 g butter
- 480 g granulated sugar
- 440 g self-raising flour
- 40 g cocoa powder
- 8 eggs
- 120 ml milk
- ⅓ teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 ⅓ teaspoon vanilla extract
Decoration
Instructions
Baking the cakes
- Preheat oven to 170°Celsius.
- Beat butter and castor sugar till soft and creamy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
- In another separate bowl, sift flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt 3 times. Fold in the sifted ingredients into the creamed mixture alternately with milk, starting and ending with flour.
- Finally add vanilla extract and combine well.
- Pour the batter into two well greased and floured 8 inches round cake tins. Level the top and bake the cakes for 45 to 50 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the center of the cakes come out without any wet batter.
- Remove the cake from oven, let them rest for a few minutes and then turn them out onto wire racks to cool completely.
- Once the cakes have cooled down completely, level the cakes and fill the layers with buttercream. Cover the entire cake with a thin coat of buttercream as the crumb coat.
- Next, cover the whole cake with white fondant. Shape the edges sharp with fondant smoothers.
Preparing the football topper template
- Use your cake tin to trace a circle in the same size as the cake tin diameter on a piece of parchment paper. Next, draw a hexagon shape on a separate piece of paper. Make sure the hexagon is not too big or too small. Cut the hexagon out following its outline.
- Place the hexagon in the centre of your round template and trace it out.
- Next, draw out straight lines from each of the 5 corners of the hexagons. Make sure the length of each line is consistent.
- Place the hexagon templates at the end of the lines (with the tip of the hexagon placed right at the end of the line). Draw out the hexagon.
- Repeat the process for all the lines.
- Finally, connect the sides of each of the hexagon lines with one another.
- If drawing the image is too complicated for you, you can always print an image off the internet. Simply resize it to ensure it fits perfectly onto the top of your cake.
Tracing the football design onto the cake
- To trace the football design onto the cake, cut the football template prepared earlier following its outer outline.
- Place the template on the fondant covered cake, and using a sugarcraft knife, cut along each line on the template.
- The idea is to mark the lines on the fondant and not cut the fondant through, so only apply light pressure when cutting marking the lines on the fondant.
Piping the edible football cake decoration
- Fill black royal icing into a piping bag fitted with round tip #3. Pipe out all the outlines of the football.
- Next, fill up the center hexagon with black icing in a circular motion. Do not thin the royal icing, but using it is the same thick consistency so that the texture of the piped circular lines are visible. Continue with the remaining 5 hexagons.
- Once done, fill the rest of the empty hexagons with white royal icing, also in a circular motion following the shape of the hexagons.
The sides of the cake
- Fill green royal icing into a piping bag fitted with same round tip #3. Pipe random zig-zag patterns all around the sides, letting some of the icing extend up to the sides of the football for a natural ‘football in the grass’ effect.
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