For my son’s 8th birthday in January 2011 he wanted a football helmet cake. I had NO CLUE where to even start with this cake and just kind of figured it out as I went along. Because I needed to have the top round I made sure that I used the right kind of pans. I didn’t want to use a bowl because I wanted the cakes to fit together without having to cut them into the shape. I am not very good at cutting a cake to shape I always cut way too much off.
So I used an 8 inch cake for the helmet to sit on and then I made 2 6 inch cakes and used one half of a 6 inch ball cake pan to make the top of the helmet. I didn’t have to do a base, but I felt like I needed more cake and the helmet alone wouldn’t feed all the family and friends that were coming over. If I do it again I would use at least an 8 inch ball pan and 2 8 inch circle pans. But I had to work with what I had that is why I made a base.
I cooked all 4 cakes the day before I was going to decorate them. I put them in the freezer so they would be nice and solid and not break when I started decorating them. I started by using butter cream to ice the base then I covered it in black marshmallow fondant that was the easy part. Then I started to get my football shape. I iced the top of my 8 inch cakes and stacked them together, then I took my half ball and stacked it on the top. It wasn’t looking much like a football cake at this point it, needed to be shaped a little.
I took a very sharp knife and just started cutting small amounts from the front of the cake where I needed the face guard to go leaving the ball part un-cut so it would kind of hang over. After it was cut and shaped I used butter cream to ice the entire cake then used my red marshmallow fondant to cover the entire helmet. It was now starting to take shape and I could see my helmet coming to life.
Next I needed to make the face mask. I added a little gum paste powder to my fondant to make it a little stiffer then I rolled the fondant into a mask and let it dry on a 2 liter bottle so it would keep the round shape that I needed to fit on the cake. I used toothpicks to attach the mask to my cake.
I then used my white fondant to make a U to put on both sides of the cake. I thought this cake was going to be a nightmare, but it was actually pretty fast to make and didn’t take too much time. My son loved it!
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