Football Pinata Birthday Cake

I was asked to bake a football cake for a colleague's son birthday. Last year the birthday boy wanted a trash pack cake which was a challenge but turned out better than expected! I was a little worried that he would ask for something complicated but fortunately he wanted a football cake. His favourite team is Manchester United so I used red for the football. I made a football cake last year which was a little disastrous so I was determined to succeed this year. I also upped the stakes by making it a pinata cake by filling it with lots of M&M's so that there would be a surprise when you cut into the cake. I learnt my lesson from last year and baked the cake 2 days in advance. This allowed plenty of time for the cake to cool before decorating and I managed a whole round sphere with no collapsing cake in sight! I baked 2 hemispheres using my Lakeland hemisphere tin and sliced each in half. I cut a circle out of the top half of each hemisphere and stacked the whole cake with icing. The gap left by the cut out circle made a cavity for the M&M's to go in. I covered the whole cake with a crumb coat icing then a further layer of icing before covering it with white fondant. I couldn't find my hexagon cutter so I had to make my own by cutting out a piece of cardboard in the shape of a hexagon and used that as my guide. I can't draw and it took me ages to get something that resembles a hexagon!

The cake is chocolate mint as requested by the birthday boy and the icing is mint buttercream icing. I piped some 'grass' at the bottom of the cake board and cut out the number 8 to represent his age. The birthday boy was really pleased with the cake. He had a birthday party and the kids were impressed with the M&M's inside the cake when the cake was cut. I asked for a photo which you can see below.

 I baked 2 hemispheres and I used a cookie cutter to balance the tin

 There was some batter left over so I made 2 mini football cakes using a mini football shape mould. 

 Filling the middle with M&M's 

 Chocolate mint icing between each layer 

 My homemade hexagon cutter 

 mini footballs

 finished cake 

 The inside of the cake 

I used Nigella's old fashioned chocolate cake and doubled her recipe. I added in 1 tablespoon of peppermint extract for the mint flavour.
The peppermint icing is made of 250g butter, 500g icing flour and 1/2 tablespoon peppermint extract plus a little green food colouring.
For the decorations - 2 packs of white fondant icing, 1 pack of red fondant icing, 2 bags of M&M's. 

Chelsea Football Cake

I baked this back in May for a colleague's son's birthday but have not gotten round to blogging about it. As it's football season, it seems fitting to present a football cake. I was asked to make a Chelsea football cake as he is a fan of Chelsea and to use the team colour which is blue. I borrowed a pair of Lakeland large hemisphere tins to bake this cake as I wanted it to be a whole circle. Unfortunately, the cake fell apart and I had to bake it again but only made 1 hemisphere. I used my favourite Nigella Old Fashioned Chocolate Cake recipe for the cake and made a simple chocolate buttercream to go with it.

I had real difficulty decorating this cake and would really appreciate some advice. I've never baked with hemisphere tins before and I was really excited when the cakes came out smoothly as a perfect hemisphere. I allowed it to cool (but probably not long enough) as the cake fell apart once I placed one on top of the other to form a 3D circle. The cakes are quite heavy so perhaps I needed a lighter sponge mix? I did wonder if it would work better if I froze the cake first or baked the cake one day and decorated it on the next day.

For the actual decorations, I rolled out a piece of white fondant to cover the cake. I cut blue hexagons using a hexagonal cutter I bought from Ebay. I also cut out a shirt and used writing icing to decorate it. I planned to make a scarf but the icing kept cracking and I couldn't keep it in once piece so I abandoned it in the end. The final cake looks a lot plainer than I planned but I tried my best! 

  Hemisphere tins and round cookie cutters 

 I used round cutters to support the hemisphere tins whilst baking 

 ready to go in the oven - they need about 60 minutes or so to bake - keep checking with a skewer as the cake is quite deep 

 perfect hemispheres 

 I placed a ring of fondant on the cake board to support the cake 

 bottom half filled with chocolate buttercream 

 Hurrah - 3D circle which sadly collapsed not long after 

 this is the second cake - just 1 hemisphere which I covered in chocolate buttercream 

 then covered with white fondant icing 

 Add some blue hexagons 

 finished cake