The Ultimate Soccer Showdown Cake!

This project my group and I have created was part of an assignment for my Foods class in school. As a student, I tried to be as creative as I could. I love cake, and soccer was a great theme to add cake balls. As we get into the process of making this epic cake, remember it can always be fun if you make it!

First you want to create the base of the soccer field. For this you will want to make two cakes so you can cut one in half and use one half to add to the soccer field and the other to create cake balls.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 2 cups granulated sugar
• 4 large eggs, room temperature
• 3 cups flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1 cup milk, room temperature
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Step by Step:

1. Preheat oven to 350°. Grease and flour 2 (9-inch) square cake pans. (You can use baking spray with flour.)

2. In a large bowl, beat butter and sugar with a mixer at medium speed until fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating after each.

3. In a medium bowl, stir together dry ingredients which are the flour, and baking powder mixture. Gradually add flour mixture to butter mixture alternately with milk, beginning and ending with flour mixture, beating just until combined after each addition. Stir in vanilla.

4. Pour batter into prepared pans. Bake until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean, 40-50 minutes. Let cool in pans for 10 minutes. Remove from pans, and let cool completely on wire racks.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup butter softened
• 3 – 4 cups powdered sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• pinch salt
• 2-3 tablespoons milk heavy cream, or half-and-half
• 1 stick of cream cheese
• (Additional option) orange juice squeezed
• (optional) cinnamon

Step by Step:

1. In a big mixing bowl add in the butter and beat till fluffy. Then add in the sugar and salt mixture.

2. Beat in the extract, orange juice, and heavy cream until a frosting like mix is created.

3. Then add the cream cheese stick and optional cinnamon.

4. Separate the frosting in three, one bowl with more frosting and the other two with an equal smaller amount. Dye the big one green, and one of the smaller ones black.

To create the cake balls you are going to cut one of your finished cakes in half and attach one half to the full cake. This creates a rectangular shape for a field. The other half of the cake you are going to stick into a mixer and mix it until it is crumbled like the photo. You can heat up this mixture multiple times, no longer than a minute to start seeing results of a dough forming. Slowly add small amounts of water to the mixture until you see a dough forming. Once you have your cake ball dough, roll as many equal balls as you can. I ended up using the black frosting for my entire soccer ball due to the lack of white frosting but you are welcome to cover your cake balls in the white frosting instead of the black. The picture shows the coloring process of our cake balls. Then you can go back in and add detail such as the white or black circles that create that soccer ball look.

As your cake balls sit you can get started on frosting the cake, be sure to have even sides and top before frosting with the big green frosting that was set aside. Once that is finished you can go in with the finishing touches. Use the white frosting and put it into a piping bag to add soccer field lines across the field. I also added green edible glitter to make the grass stand out more. The last and final step is to spread all the cake balls on the outer sides of the soccer field cake. Then you can add your dots to the soccer balls and you are finished! This cake is just a fun and easy process to make for whatever occasion. Even though the end result may be so good looking you don't want to ruin it, it might taste better than it looks!