For the Love of Sports Birthday Cake

Fans of baseball, basketball, soccer, football or tennis will love this Sports-Themed Birthday Cake. Decorated with stripes, swirls and cute candy sports balls, this cake is a sure-fire slam dunk for dads, brothers and friends. Personalize your cake with a happy birthday (or Happy Father's Day) message and get ready to score a touchdown with this simple sporty sweet!

Skill LevelIntermediate

Ingredients & Tools
Instructions

Instructions

Sport Balls Pattern

Click to mark complete

Make candy decorations. Print template; tape to cake board. Tape parchment paper over template. Set aside.
Melt Orange, Bright White, Light Cocoa, Black, Vibrant Green and Red candy, separately, according to package directions. Transfer melted candy into six individual decorating bags. Cut 1/8 in. off tip of each bag.
Using melted candy and prepared pattern, make 4 to 5 of each sports ball. For baseball and football, freehand the stitching after ball is fully covered.
Chill until set, about 5 to 10 minutes.
Bake cake. Prepare cake batter following recipe instructions. Bake and cool two cake layers. Level, fill and stack layers for 5 in. high cake.
Using white icing, ice cake smooth, using heavier icing on sides of cake.
Using squared notch icing comb, comb cake, removing excess icing as needed. Place cake in freezer to set, about 45 to 60 minutes.
Tint icing. Using Kelly Green icing color, tint 1 cup icing green. Set aside for later step.
Using Black icing color, tint 2 cups white icing black. Prepare decorating bag with tip 3 and black icing.
Place cake on turntable. Carefully pipe black icing into indents of cake. Using icing smoother, smooth out icing, wiping smoother clean after each use.
Helpful Hint: The more times you go around the cake with the icing smoother, the more defined the lines will become.
Decorate cake. Prepare decorating bag with white icing; cut ¼ in. off tip of bag. Arrange sports balls around cake, using icing to adhere as needed.
Prepare decorating bag with tip 21 and reserved green icing. Pipe elongated swirls around top edge of cake.