Learn how to make easy soccer cupcakes with this easy tutorial. These cute cupcakes are topped with hand piped edible soccer ball toppers made in royal icing. These soccer themed cupcakes decorating idea is perfect for birthdays!
The cupcakes are baked in silver foil casings and covered with green frosting. Each cupcake is then topped with completely edible soccer ball toppers.
This cupcakes design was inspired by a football cake I decorated not too long ago. I had leftover frosting from decorating the cake and thought I would try decorating some cupcakes with the same soccer theme.
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❤️Why You Will Love These Cupcakes
- The cupcakes are moist and delicious.
- The soccer ball toppers can be made in advance which means no scrambling at the very last minute to get them done.
- They make cute soccer cupcakes and perfect for soccer themed parties.
- You do not need any special tools or cutters to make the toppers. A piping bag with round piping tips are sufficient.
If you like these soccer cupcakes, you will also like these Marvel Superheroes cupcakes, dump truck cake, airplane cake and Star Wars cake.
🧾Supplies Required
- Chocolate cupcakes – I used my chocolate cupcakes recipe for the cupcakes and baked them in silver cupcake liners.
- Royal icing in 3 colors - green, black and white. The green was tinted in Wilton Moss Green (to cover the cupcakes) and the black was tinted in a combination of black, brown, green, and red food colors. As for the white, I did not tint it as the natural white color of the royal icing was sufficient.
- Soccer ball template – You can draw the template by hand or trace it from a book or the internet.
- Wilton round tip 2 to pipe the royal icing. I had 2 of these round tips so that made it easier for me to not have to transfer them between the black and white colors when piping the soccer cupcake toppers.
- Disposable piping bags
- Spatula
- Parchment paper - to pipe the soccer ball toppers on.
👩🍳How to Make
Step 1: Make the Soccer ball Topper Template
To make the templates, you can either draw them by hand or trace them off a book or the internet. I traced mine from an online image and resized it to fit the cupcakes. I have a separate tutorial on how to resize images for cake decorating and you can read all about it here.
Note: Make sure the size of the soccer balls is slightly smaller than the diameter of the cupcakes so that they fit well on the cupcakes.
Trace the final image onto to parchment paper pieces. Make as many templates as you need including a few extras as contingency for breakage.
Step 2: Make Royal Icing and Pipe the Soccer Ball Toppers
Prepare the royal icing. Divide it into 2 and tint the second portion with a combination of black, brown, green and red food coloring. This combination will give you a darker black as compared to using only black food coloring.
Place the first soccer ball template onto a cake board with the drawing facing down. Turning the paper over helps in making sure the pencil markings do not come into contact with the icing. Hold it in place with tape or blue tac.
Start with the black icing. Fill it into a piping bag fitted with round tip #2. Pipe the outline for the center-most hexagon patch on the ball.
Continue filling the hexagon with lines of icing in a circular motion until it is all filled up.
Repeat the steps above for all the black sections of the ball.
After that, fill up the rest of the hexagons on the ball with white royal icing.
Once the piping is done, carefully peel the template off the cake board and lay it on a flat surface (like a baking tray) and leave it aside until the royal icing sets.
Continue making all the soccer ball toppers.
Once the royal is completely dry, you can peel the parchment paper backing off the royal icing soccer balls. Peel gently to avoid the balls from breaking.
Set these topper aside in a cool dry place until the cupcakes are ready.
Step 3: Bake and Frost the Cupcakes
While waiting for the soccer cupcake toppers to set, you can bake your cupcakes.
Let them cool completely to room temperature before covering the top of each cupcake with green royal icing.
Step 4: Assemble the Cupcakes
While the royal icing frosting is still soft, attach one soccer ball topper onto each frosted cupcake. Press gently to adhere them to the royal icing on the cupcakes.
If the royal icing on the cupcakes has already crusted, dap a little extra icing at the back of the ball toppers and attach them to the cupcakes.
And that is pretty much how I made my soccer cupcakes.
Do you like this tutorial? Please leave a 5-star ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐rating in the recipe card below and consider a review further down this page. I would love to hear from you. Thank you!
📖Recipe
Soccer Cupcakes with Edible Soccer Ball Toppers
Equipment
- Soccer ball template
- Wilton round tip 2
- Disposable piping bags
- Parchment paper
- Spatula
For best results, use the metrics measurements. US customary measurements have not been tested and are only meant for guide.
Ingredients
Cupcakes
- 120 g butter
- 75 g granulated sugar
- 25 g brown sugar
- 2 eggs
- 100 g self-raising flour
- 30 g cocoa powder
- ¼ teaspoon baking powder
- 4 tablespoon milk
- ¾ teaspoon vanilla extract
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 5 tablespoon chocolate sprinkles
Frosting and Decoration
- Royal Icing
- Food coloring (green, black, brown and red)
Instructions
Bake the cupcakes
- Prepare your cupcake casings.
- Preheat oven to 170°Celsius.
- Beat butter and both sugars till light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
- Sift the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt. Fold in the sifted ingredients into the creamed mixture alternately with milk, starting and ending with flour.
- Add in the vanilla extract and mix well.
- Pour batter into baking cups until they are about two thirds full. Sprinkle about ½ teaspoon for chocolate sprinkles on top of the cupcakes batter.
- Bake the chocolate cupcakes for 15 (depending on the size of the casing you use) or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cupcakes comes out without any wet batter sticking to it.
- Remove the cupcakes from oven and let them cool completely before decorating.
Make the royal icing soccer ball toppers
- Start by preparing the soccer ball templates. Make as many templates as possible so that all the toppers can be piped all at once rather than having to repeat the process.
- Trace the templates onto parchment paper for easy peeling of the royal icing once it is set. And in using the templates, if there are any pencil markings, turn the templates over so that the pencil markings do not get transferred to the icing.
- Use round tip #2 to pipe the balls. Start with the black sections of the balls first. Once all the black sections of the soccer balls are done, complete the piping with white royal icing by filling up all sections that were meant to be filled up in white.
- Once the piping is done, leave the balls aside for them to set and dry completely (preferably overnight). Once set, peel off the parchment paper (have to do this very carefully to avoid the soccer balls from breaking). Make extra toppers for contingency.
Frost the cupcakes
- After baking, once the cupcakes have cooled down completely to room temperature, cover the top of each cupcake with green royal icing. I did not smooth the tops as much, and that was intentional. The green icing was meant to be the ‘grass’ on which the royal icing soccer balls are supposed to be put on.
Attach the soccer ball toppers
- Attach the soccer cupcake toppers as soon as each cupcake is covered with green icing. This is to get the ball toppers to be attached securely to the cupcakes. In case the green icing sets before the toppers are attached on, simply dab a little green icing at the back of each topper and attach them to the cupcakes.
Notes
- When working with royal icing, always keep it covered to prevent crusting.
- It is advisable to make extra soccer ball toppers to give allowance for any breakages.
- The toppers can be made a few days in advance.
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