I’m the host of Awestruck’s new show, the Ultimate Birthday Cake Battle, on Verizon’s Go90 app. In the Ultimate Birthday Cake Battle, two moms compete head to head for a cash prize. They get only 90 minutes to decorate and assemble their cake design. They are given the theme ahead of time so they have a chance to plan their cake, but are forced to complete it under the time restriction and the cameras! You’re going to be so impressed with these moms. They are tough! My newest video up on the Awestruck YouTube channel is a sports themed Baseball Cap Pinata Cake!
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The hardest part about this cake is choosing which team to make! Having Los Angeles on my mind (as we had just been there) I went with their baseball team. I chose to go with fondant for this design as I wanted to be able to emboss the cake with different techniques. Mainly, I wanted to have stitching in the fondant showing and I love using the stitching tool (don’t ask me why). I usually try to avoid using fondant for cakes as I, 1. hate it, and 2. it’s a pain to work with when you don’t use it on a regular basis! I sucked it up for this design though and came through with exactly what I was aiming to create.
When I first envisioned this cake, I knew I wanted to have a surprise coming out of the cake. Living in a small town sometimes is super challenging to find exactly what you’re looking for, but Bulk Barn came through for me again and I was able to find the most adorable little sports foiled covered chocolates balls. Hollowing out part of the inside of the cakes used is a crazy easy way to add an extra level of excitement to birthday cakes! Imagine the look on the little birthday boy or girl’s face when not only do they get their own cake, they also get chocolate to go with it! Or maybe that would just have been the look on my face . . . as an adult. Someone needs to make ME one of these!
The tutorial that I have created for you uses vanilla cake and vanilla buttercream, but you can change the flavours however you want to. Since the cake is being covered in fondant, it doesn’t matter what anything underneath the fondant looks like. I love working with my vanilla cake as I’ve used it hundreds (if not thousands) of times and it stands up to whatever I do it…whether it’s carving, hollowing or stacking. For the proper size of the hat, I found that my ball cake pan wasn’t quite big enough, so I added a 6″ round cake underneath to raise it up a bit. It makes the cake larger in size, and larger in numbers of servings.
Let me know in the comments which team you would pick to create this cake based on.
Baseball Cap Pinata Cake
Ingredients:
- 6” round prepared cake
- 6” round domed cake
- Vanilla buttercream
- Green buttercream, with grass tip
- Blue, and white fondant
- Chocolate sports balls (foil wrapped)
Procedure:
- Level cakes, and attach round cake to a cake board using a swipe of buttercream.
- Remove center of both cakes using a circle cutter and spoon. Fill the wells with the sports chocolate balls.
- Place a line of buttercream around the bottom cake and use it to attach to the the dome to the top. Hold the chocolates in place while flipping the cake over, and lining up the holes.
- Cover entire cake in vanilla buttercream.
- Roll out blue fondant and transfer to cover cake. Use a fondant smoother to get the fondant completely covering the cake. Remove excess around the bottom with a knife or cutter.
- Using a ruler or straight edge, make straight lines from the bottom of the cake, to the middle of the top, about 3 ½” apart. On either side of the straight lines, use a stitching tool to emulate stitches in the hat.
- Roll out leftover blue fondant, and cut out a brim, add stitches with the stitching tool. Slide into place on the cake board.
- Using a small cutter, or bottom of a piping tip, cut out a small round circle for the button on the top of the cap. Using the top of a #12 piping tip, cut out six small round circles for the grommets in the panels on the hat. Use the top of a #5 piping tip to remove the center of the small circle. Attach these elements to the cake using a small amount of water.
- Using a printed guide, trace the LA logo onto a piece of fondant and cut out using a sharp knife. Attach to the front of the hat using a small amount of water.
- Using the green buttercream fitted with a grass tip (#233) pipe grass around the hat, covering the board.
- Place a baseball candy beside the hat if desired.
- The cake is best consumed within 2-3 days, and can be kept in a sealed container in the fridge.
