It's officially FOOTBALL SEASON!! So, in honor of this awesome time of year, I will be featuring a couple of fun and, more importantly, EASY football cakes both today and tomorrow. These cakes were made using the Wilton First and Ten Football Pan. Seriously, y'all, this pan is so easy to use, and this cake is also really easy to ice!
I read all sorts of message boards about how to use this pan before I tried it for the first time, and, trust me, skip all that reading and just BAKE IT! I was nervous about it not cooking evenly, etc, etc, and truly, all you have to do is just stick it in the oven. Both times I've used this pan, my football has turned out great!!
I made the first cake I'm featuring for my dear friend's sweet little boy's 3rd birthday party. This is a Football Cake on top of a 12x18 sheet cake. It is a vanilla sheet cake iced smooth with green buttercream icing. And, actually, the football is iced with vanilla buttercream also... I just tinted it brown! I iced the football on a cutting board first, and then just carefully plopped it onto the sheet cake.
Funny story... I decided to put a big number "3" on the cake, so I thought I'd just use my extra brown icing. My hubby warned me that it was going to look "gross," but I didn't feel like tinting more icing, so I moved forward with a, "thanks honey, I know what I am doing" attitude. I got that brown 3 on there and wanted to cry... Hubby was right! It looked like it belonged in a toilet! I wanted to cry! So I meticulously and painstakingly lifted that dirty brown 3 off this cake and went about tinting a batch of red icing. Thank goodness it turned out okay!
Anyway, back to the cake....
Here's how you make it...
Blend any cake mix you like with 3 eggs, 1 cup of water and 1 stick of melted better. Beat on low for 1 minute and then on high for 1 minute. NOTE- using this recipe makes a boxed cake mix a little denser which will help keep your football in tact!
Pour 5 cups of batter in your greased up football pan (I like to use Wilton Cake Release), and then place your pan on a cookie sheet. Stick the whole thing in a 350 degree oven for 50-55 minutes. Afterwards, let it cool for about 10 minutes, level the "hump" of the cake, and then flip it over onto a wire rack.
Here's what my chocolate football looked like after baking.... so cute!
Once your cake cools completely, just ice away! It's pretty easy to get this cake iced smoothly. Once you've covered it in brown (or chocolate) icing, use tip #16 to pipe the white icing details like this:
Isn't it fun?!?
Tomorrow's FOOTBALL CAKE is going to be even EASIER than this one. It's just a basic football without the sheet cake... simple and easy, I promise! I am in the middle of making it right now for my nephew's 9th birthday... STAY TUNED!