Having A Ball

I know I was dismissive of sports cakes just last week, but did the fates have to fight back so soon, and with such a vengeance? Ball cakes are just hard, because you need to achieve a perfect sphere – or at least give the impression that you’ve achieved it. The last time I had to make a spherical cake, I had the whole world to recreate. Overall, I’d say it was a success but do you see that white strip down at the bottom, pretending to be clouds? Well, that was a creative way to cover the fact that the Southern Hemisphere was a bit of a mess.

This time, clouds wouldn’t cut it. But that was OK! Because the bottom of the cake wasn’t actually a mess. It all came down to meticulous cutting and measuring. Have you ever noticed that the black segments of a soccer ball are pentagons and the white ones are hexagons? This is a key distinction when you’re trying to recreate the design. I’m not sure anyone would really notice if I’d made them all hexagons, but why take the risk? Nitai may be only six but maybe he’s super observant. I wouldn’t want to be the cause of his birthday being ruined.

Another minor but still significant factor is that each section features tiny little stitches. Did I sit there with a toothpick and mark each and every little segment? I did not. Here’s a little trick for all you budding cake decorators. Go to a fabric supply store and ask for a quilting tool. It’s a notched wheel with a handle. When you run it across fondant, it creates a stitching pattern. Presto! The one challenge is to run it in a straight line – a challenge I mostly succeeded in meeting.

Would I say that this experience has changed my attitude about sports cakes? Well, maybe just a smidgen.