As I think I have mentioned before, all of my cake ideas come from my boys…so when one of the boys was turning 4 and had just learned how to play billiards at granny’s house and absolutely LOVED the game (he was good at it too) he asked me for a Pool Table cake for his birthday. I of course said, “Of course!” and began planning it out. (Later he would find out that his big present was also a mini 4 foot high home pool table, but that’s a whole different story).
This cake is a three layer rectangle cake on top of a 13×19 cake board. I didn’t want to use a lot of fondant for this one, so I only made the pool balls and sticks out of it. The rest is good ole butter cream. First, I rolled the pool balls by hand out of the white fondant and stuck a toothpick in the bottom of each one and placed it on a Styrofoam tray to hold it up. I then came back with a paint brush and Wilton food coloring, slightly watered down, and painted the balls to look like a set of pool table balls. The toothpicks allow you to paint all around without having to hold the ball of fondant. Don’t forget that the very bottom will be sitting on the cake, so the bottom doesn’t have to be completely perfect. Once the pool balls are done set them aside and let dry…make the pool sticks the same way. Then I moved onto the cake.
Layer your cake and before you cut the top of it down some for the green felt, stick it in the freezer for about and hour or so. It will make it a lot easier to cut. I left about 2 inches for the boarder and cut down about an inch. Using a spatula, just slide that top layer our piece by piece (these parts can be used for you to snack on while you are finishing the rest of the design) I used green icing and piped on the felt, going back over it with a cake spatula to smooth it out. The “pockets” are plastic bottle caps with the edges cut off just sitting level with the felt area. Because they are black, it looks like they are holes. Next, pipe your brown icing around the top boarder and side, also smoothing it out with a cake spatula. I then took a BIG paint/basting brush and dipped it into brown icing with some dark brown and black food coloring…and painted the texture to the sides and boarders of the cake. Now onto the fun part…Place the pool balls on the table and shoot! My four year old actually picked up the sticks and tried, but because the balls were on icing they wouldn’t roll. I guess if you used a sheet of green fondant for the felt, it might actually work!
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