Coolest Bowling Ball Birthday Cake

I made this bowling ball birthday cake for an employee’s 24th birthday. He bowls as a hobby and had gone to the finals and bowled a perfect game. So, I had him send me pictures of his ball and recreated it in cake on top of a modern looking 1950 replica of a Diner and Bowling Alley with the diamonds. Then, I wrote Happy Birthday, his age and 300 for a perfect game in edible ink.

I angled the bottom cake which I made from scratch. It was a white chocolate cake, covered in white chocolate ganache and then white chocolate buttercream frosting. The bowling ball part of the cake was baked in 2 1/2 round pans and then frosted together with buttercream, then ganache to help it hold better, and finally frozen. Next, I inserted a wood dowel into the second layer to hold.

I did chocolate flow work on the pins to achieve the BOWL and PINS as a topper. On my first attempt I did the B and L backwards, forgetting that it is mirrored.

How to Make the Chocolate Flow Work/ Pins:

Print out or draw your design and then put that on a cake board or cardboard and tape. Next, take plastic wrap, cover it and tape it down, pulling the plastic as tight as you can with out ripping it. You can then use your candy melts. Melt your first color for your trim/outline. Put chocolate into a paper piping bag you make. If you do not overfill it, it’s easier. Do all the trim work and/or small detail work. Take the next color that doesn’t need much and continue.

In the case of this bowling cake, black was the first color and red was the second. Then only the white was left to add. I put the bowling pins in the fridge to harden up for 20 minutes after each color. When it came to the last color (white) I just filled in the rest right over the other colors because you are only going to be seeing or presenting the front. I made the back very smooth with an off-angled spatula and then hardened up the pins for 1 hour (this time was needed because I made the white thick and inserted long Cake Pop sticks so I could insert the pins on the cake later. I covered the Cake Pop sticks with chocolate as well. This worked great.

Reaction:

I took the bowling ball birthday cake to my diner and put it on top of the microwave by the pass. My guests could not believe that it was a cake. My employee must have hugged me 4 times. He was so touched and told me he had never had a cake as cool as this, let alone a bowling cake. He took it to show his bowling team and they all thought it was the coolest cake they had ever seen… How cool is that?

Surprise Inside of the Cake:

I surprised my employee by putting his age inside of the cake. I do not have any pictures of the inside of his cake, so I included a picture of a trial cake, cut so you can see the result. To learn how I did this go to my “Sweet 16 Mardi Gras Cake” and the directions of how to do this will be there. Enjoy!

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