Jacob's Birthday Cake

This past weekend my oldest son turned 8. I had a great time working on his birthday cake. Since his 4th birthday, I've always taken on his cakes as a challenge each year, and this year was no exception. Jacob's first soccer game was this past weekend also, so I thought it would be fun to do a soccer ball cake.

I picked up this Wilton Sports Ball Pan with a coupon at my local Michael's Craft Store. Looked like a fun cake to make...

But seemed sort of small, so I decided to make a field to sit the ball on...

So here's the field, a 9" x 13" cake left in the pan (I'll explain why in a minute).

From 2010 09 12 Jacob's 8th Birthday

Then I had to put the ball hemispheres on, one piece at a time, sealed together with some icing. You can see the 3 dowel rods I used to support the ball...so the ball wouldn't smash down the field.

From 2010 09 12 Jacob's 8th Birthday

From 2010 09 12 Jacob's 8th Birthday

Next, I iced the ball with a "crumb coat" which is a thin coat of icing just to keep the artistic stuff from getting messy:

From 2010 09 12 Jacob's 8th Birthday

Next, I used the guides in the directions to trace the soccer ball pattern. This got a little messy, the crumb coat came up as I peeled the paper.

From 2010 09 12 Jacob's 8th Birthday

The plan was to pipe in blue and red pentagons, and all the hexagons would be in white. The blue icing wasn't as well mixed, and clumps of powdered sugar kept blocking the piping tip. So I didn't use the blue as much as I'd hoped.

From 2010 09 12 Jacob's 8th Birthday

The finished cake:

From 2010 09 12 Jacob's 8th Birthday

From 2010 09 12 Jacob's 8th Birthday

I kept the cake in the pan to make it easier to transport to The Amazing Pizza Machine, where we celebrated Jacob's birthday with the family and two of his closest friends here, Dean and Drake.

Happy Birthday Jacob!!!

From 2010 09 12 Jacob's 8th Birthday