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!
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 
That looks really good! When you say your cake fell apart, do you mean it was too soft and broke? I didn't have any problem when I made this cake http://www.carolinemakes.net/2014/03/teapot-birthday-cake-strawberry-tea.html
ReplyDeletebut once I put buttercream between the two layers and tried to cover it I found the top layer slid off the bottom layer a bit so it wasn't perfectly round any more. It was also quite hard to cover the ball with fondant!
I think the top cake was too heavy and the cake was probably still warm inside even though it felt cool on the outside. The weight of the top cake collapsed on to the bottom one. Yours looks really good - I'll have to try a teapot cake next time.
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