Soccer Cake

This lucky birthday kid got to spend a whole week before his birthday in Russia, catching FIFA World Cup 2018 matches in the flesh!! Of course, he's an avid soccer play and is also Ronaldo's biggest fan and loves to do Ronaldo's signature victory pose! So this year, his parents planned a surprise birthday cake for him, in his game day soccer jersey, in the Ronaldo pose! I've been lucky to be able to make his cakes over the past few years: a pirate ship for his 5th, a Lego castle for his 6th and now this soccer cake! 

Caricature Soccer Cake

The cake itself is deliciously moist devil's food cake, filled with vanilla Swiss meringue buttercream, and ganached in dark chocolate. To make the fondant "drip" on top of the cake, I rolled out green fondant, and then, using a cake board the same diameter as the cake, I cut a wavy perimeter around the cake board but 1" to 2" larger than the board. Then, just drape the fondant over as usual and smooth down. (another method is to roll a fondant piece, drape it over, and then cut the "drips" with a sharp knife after draping. I find my method easier, especially when you don't have a good and sharp craft knife)

wavy green fondant "drip" for grass on top

The highlight of this cake though, is the fun, caricature sugar figurine of the birthday boy! His dad had sent me a photo for reference, and I tried to capture the same detail, using gumpaste and fondant. He's in a red game day jersey for the cake, instead of the blue training jersey in the reference photo. 

caricature of the birthday boy!

The trickiest to get right were the eyes. I tried to do a more proportional set, with top and bottom eyelids, but the result was a little freaky.

sculpting the head.

freaky eyes!

On the advice of my kids, I replaced the freaky eyes with cartoon bug eyes. Haaa. Still a little freaky in opinion, but a cute kind of freaky. 

reminds me of those shrunken head thingies.

To apply the details on the jersey, I used a fine paint brush and Edible Art Paints, making sure to personalise the birthday boy's name and lucky number on the back of the jersey too! 

all the little details

don't forget the club sponsors

Euro Soccer Academy club

For the small fondant soccer ball, instead of going cross-eyed cutting out tiny pentagons and hexagons, I used the easy "small balls of fondant" method. Roll a small ball of fondant, about 1/3 the size of what you want your soccer ball to eventually be. This will be your base ball. Then roll 30 or so tiny balls of white fondant and 15 or so tiny balls of black fondant. 

Start sticking the tiny balls all over the small "base" ball, starting with one black tiny ball, surrounded by 5 white tiny balls. Do not push the balls down flat. Just press light until they stick. Continue doing this pattern until the entire ball is covered. Then, smoothen the whole ball by rolling it in the palm of your hands, like you do when making a regular ball. Boom, easy fondant soccer ball, done!

fondant soccer ball

Depending on the cake design, sometimes it's hard to find a suitable number candle to match. So an easy way is just to make your own out of fondant and stick a regular candle down the middle! The request was for a blue no. 7 candle, so that's what I made. 

easy number candle

GOOOOOAAAAL!!

It was perfect that the FIFA World Cup 2018 final was going down on the night of the birthday boy's celebration, and I'm so happy that he and his family enjoyed the cake! 

FIFA World Cup 2018 on TV!

As a special birthday surprise, Donovan was featured on Nigerian Media! Check out the article here. He was interviewed in Russia at the World Cup, and the media network chose to air his story and wish him a happy birthday! (and as a bonus, our cake was used for the story's cover photo!). Wishing Donovan a very Happy 7th Birthday!

Special surprise for the birthday boy!*

Happy 7th Birthday, Donovan!*

*pics shared by Donovan's parents