Sports Themed Birthday Cake
Sports Themed Birthday Cake
Make your next birthday celebration a slam dunk with this cute and easy sports-themed cake! Perfect for any sports lover, this round cake is uniquely divided into three sections, each designed to look like a football, basketball, and baseball. And if your favorite sports are different, no problem! You can easily swap out the designs I did for the ball of your choice.
Have you tried our Football Field Cookie Bars? These would be a fun and easy option for a football-themed birthday party!
Things to Love about This Cake
- Customizable Design: Easily switch out the sports balls to match your favorite games—whether it’s football, basketball, baseball, volleyball, softball, or tennis.
- Eye-Catching Centerpiece: The unique tri-sport design makes this cake a standout feature at any birthday party, impressing both kids and adults.
- Simple to Make: Despite its elaborate look, this cake is straightforward to create with our step-by-step instructions.
- Great for All Ages: Whether it’s for a child’s birthday or an adult sports fan, this cake is sure to be a hit across all age groups.
Tools & Supplies
To create this super cute sports-themed birthday cake, you’ll need the right tools and supplies. Each item on this list plays an essential role in making the decorating process smoother and more efficient. These items are my must-haves for decorating any cake:
- Ateco Revolving Cake Decorating Stand: This aluminum turntable with a cast iron base and non-slip pad allows for smooth and easy rotation, making it easier to decorate your cake from all angles.
- Wilton Small Star Tip: Perfect for creating detailed star designs and textured patterns on your cake. This small star pattern is the MVP of this cake design. It’s also the key to creating a professional-looking cake when you have absolutely no cake-decorating experience at all! The technique is a little old-school, but it still works like a charm.
- Wilton Small Round Tip: Ideal for adding smaller details to the decorating, such as the stitching on the football or basketball lines.
- Wilton White Decorating Icing (Medium Consistency)*: Provides the perfect texture for both piping and spreading, ensuring your designs hold their shape while staying smooth.
- AmeriColor Gel Food Coloring: Offers vibrant, consistent colors that won’t thin out your icing, allowing you to achieve the bold, distinct hues needed for each sports ball. More about mixing up those vibrant colors in the notes section below.
- 8-Inch Cake Ring: I love using my cake rings for lots of different things in cake decorating, so I think they are worth the purchase. But if there’s one thing on this list you could do without (especially if you don’t do a lot of baking normally), it might be this. For this cake, I used it to create imprints on the frosting to create a perfect partial circle for the baseball and the basketball. It gave me the perfect guide to follow while piping.
- Offset Spatula: Essential for spreading icing smoothly and evenly, especially useful for covering large surface areas and creating a polished finish. I don’t know how anyone survives without at least one of these in their kitchen!
- Wilton Frosting Smoother: Helps achieve a perfectly smooth and professional-looking cake surface, crucial for a clean canvas (especially along the sides) before adding detailed decorations.
Recipe Notes & Tips for Success
Color Your Icing Gradually
When using AmeriColor gel food coloring, add color a little at a time until you achieve the desired shade. Gel colors are very concentrated, so a small amount goes a long way.
Achieving Black Frosting
To make black frosting, use Hershey’s Special Dark cocoa powder along with a couple of drops of black food coloring. You only need to color a very small amount of frosting—about two tablespoons at most. Keep in mind that the color will continue to develop as it sits, so give it some time to reach the perfect shade.
Crumb-Coat and Chill Your Cake
Start with a crumb-coated and chilled cake. This provides a much easier foundation for decorating, as the crumb coat seals in crumbs and creates a smooth surface for the final layer of frosting.
All-Sports Themed Birthday Cake
By following these steps, you'll create a visually appealing and delicious sports-themed cake that will be a hit at any birthday celebration!
Ingredients
- 8-inch round cake (crumb-coated and chilled)*
- Wilton's pre-made white decorating icing (medium consistency)**
- Hershey's Special Dark cocoa powder
- AmeriColor gel food coloring (red, orange, black)
- Wilton small star tip
- Wilton small round tip
- Offset spatula
- Piping bags
- Ateco revolving cake decorating stand
- Wilton frosting smoother
- 8-inch cake ring
Instructions
Prepare Your Icing Colors:
- Football Brown: Mix Hershey's Special Dark (or regular) cocoa powder into a 1/3 cup portion of white icing to achieve a brown color. Cover with plastic wrap and set aside.
- Basketball Orange: Add orange gel food coloring to another 1/3 cup portion of white icing until you get a vibrant orange. Cover with plastic wrap and set aside.
- Baseball Red: Mix red gel food coloring into a 2-tablespoon portion of white icing. Cover with plastic wrap and set aside.
- Black for Details: Mix about 2 tablespoons of the frosting with a few drops of black food coloring. Use Hershey's Special Dark cocoa powder to deepen the color if needed instead of adding more food coloring. Let the black icing sit, as the color will continue to develop over time. If the icing is too thick, add a little bit of milk to thin it to the desired consistency. Cover with plastic wrap and set aside.
- White: Reserve remainder of the white icing for the football laces and baseball stitches.
Divide and Outline the Cake:
- Place the crumb-coated and chilled cake on the cake decorating stand.
- Divide the cake into three equal sections for the football, basketball, and baseball. I did this using an 8-inch cake ring that I gently pressed into the icing to serve as a template.
- Using an offset spatula, smooth a thin layer of each colored icing onto the corresponding sections of the cake.
- With the Wilton small round tip and black icing, outline the boundaries between each section for clarity.
Decorate Each Section:
Pro tip: start the decorating at the bottom of the cake and work your way up.
Football Section
- Fit a piping bag with the Wilton small star tip and fill it with the brown icing.
- Pipe small stars to cover the entire football section.
- Use the Wilton small round tip and white icing to pipe the laces in the center of the football section.
Basketball Section
- Using another piping bag with the small star tip, fill it with the orange icing.
- Pipe small stars to cover the basketball section.
- Outline the basketball lines using the Wilton small round tip and black icing.
Baseball Section
- With a clean piping bag and small star tip, fill it with white icing.
- Pipe small stars to cover the baseball section.
- Use the Wilton small round tip and red icing to pipe the stitches on the baseball.
Notes
*If you are using a standard box cake mix recipe, bake the mix into two layers (8-inch round). If you are using a homemade recipe or a doctored up cake mix recipe, bake the cake into three layers (still 8-inch rounds).
**Homemade frosting is fine too. See notes in post for details on this ingredient.