Kick Off Soccer Ball Cake

For this soccer ball cake, which was requested for the kick-off meeting of this year’s NCL class, I broke out the Betty Crocker Bake n’ Fill. It makes a perfect round shape. Usually I fill them with ice cream, but since this one needed a little time out of the freezer for decorating the top, I went with something less melty but true to the color theme- Cookies and Cream.

Cookies and Cream Filled Cake

What you need:

- Betty Crocker Bake n’ Fill Pan

- 1 Box Devil’s Food Cake Mix and ingredients (oil, water, 3 eggs + dash of good vanilla)

- 2 cans Fluffy White icing

- 8 chocolate cream filled cookies (crushed)

- piping bags, 2 identical star tips, a #4 tip for outlining, and some toothpicks.

Mix cake according to package instructions. I filled the outer sphere pan and the round insert. This uses one box of cake mix. I had moderate success with the insert because the cake got really tall instead of spreading out in its pan. I am going to cut the top off and use the extra space for the filling, using the round half circle as a kind of plug for the cream filling.

After cake is baked and cooled, it helps to chill it in the fridge or freezer so it holds shape while you ice it.

Cream Filling:

Take 1/2 package of fluffy white frosting and mix it with the crushed cookies. Keeping the sphere in the pan, fill the top 1/3 of the dome with the mixture and ice the remaining empty dome with either the cookie mixture (if you didn’t already eat it) or with plain white icing.

Assembly:

Cut the smaller cake sphere so that it fits in the remainder of the cavity. Since my cake broke, I did this in pieces. Like the tastiest puzzle ever…

Decorating:

Flip the cake onto your cake board and crumb coat with white icing. Sketch out the soccer ball design using a toothpick and outline in black icing. I used a #4 tip for this. Use the Wilton star to fill in the white and black sections. You may have to add a little more confectioners sugar to the fluffy white because it is so whipped up, otherwise it won’t hold the star shape and will just look goopy. I also chilled it a bit once it was in the piping bag.

I had a good bit of white icing left over so I tinted it green and put grass around the bottom of the ball. You can use the star tip or grass/hair tip for a nice effect.