Soccer Ball Cake Tutorial

In today's cake video tutorial, I'm going to show you how to make a soccer ball cake! If you have any soccer-loving people in your life, making sure to keep this cake tutorial in mind!

Spherical cakes can be a little tricky, but the techniques that you learn in this tutorial will keep you on the right track! ;0)

In the soccer cake video tutorial, we will show you how to assemble a round cake, frost with ganache and then how to decorate as a soccer ball.

Table of Contents

Ball Cake Options

Knowing how to make a 3D round cake is a skill that you will be able to apply to an endless list of creative designs, from beach balls, to volleyball and baseballs, to cartoonish animals with round bodies...the list goes on and on!

How to keep a Ball Cake from Settling or "Deflating"

One problem that I faced in the past when making spherical cakes (and a common complaint among decorators), is that within hours or at least by the next day, my perfectly round cakes always seemed to deflate. It is hard to be excited about a deflated soccer ball cake! ;0) -- SO, we are putting an end to all of that with this tutorial.

For me, the key to creating a round cake that will hold it's round shape over time is to use a support and board within.

Frosting the cake in ganache gives an added layer of insurance as it sets up firmer than a crusting buttercream. (If you go the buttercream route, I would keep it chilled until closer to the event time, just to be on the safe side.)

As for creating the soccer ball, you will learn some helpful tips on working with templates (that don't always fit together so well as you work your way down the cake, lol) --

Materials

*For today's soccer cake, we are working with our White Almond Sour Cream (doctored Mix) recipe. Use whatever you'd like, but I prefer a cake that is somewhat dense for 3-D cakes.

Wilton Sports Ball Pan Set (aff.)

White Chocolate Ganache- (ratio of 3 parts chocolate to one part cream) - We used 1000g. of ganache.

White Fondant- (700g.) I used Liz Marek's recipe found HERE

Fluffy vanilla buttercream frosting (for filling and grass)

TEMPLATES (Pentagon & hexagon for the soccer cake)

Pre Colored black fondant for my pentagons

Toothpick and Wilton wheel tool (use one or the other or both) for impressions

Wilton Leaf Green for our buttercream grass

Grass Tip

Additional Notes

There is more than one way to make a spherical cake.

As we mentioned in the video, it is common to hear of decorators using a styrofoam half-ball for the bottom portion of their ball cakes.

This is great way to eliminate any worry of the bottom half drooping. Because of some unexpected happenings in the past week that threw our schedule a bit off, our finished soccer ball cake has been sitting on Mom's dining room table for over a week now!

It has not changed a bit. No sagging or dragging ;0)

Templates

We made a couple of soccer ball cakes in the past two weeks in preparation of the video.

Both times, we had the same result-- the templates worked well on the upper portions of the cake, but did not fit so snugly by the mid and bottom portions.

I imagine that the thickness of the ganache and fondant (or frosting), as well as how perfectly spherical your cake is will effect how snugly these templates fit together.

So, the method that I demonstrate is an easy fix to those not-so-perfect moments

Simpler Soccer Cake Design

You can use the same techniques and templates to make a half-soccer ball instead!

I've seen lots of cute designs that feature just the top half of the soccer ball stacked (with supports beneath) on a sheet cake, round cake, or on a cake board surrounded by buttercream grass.

More Sports Cakes

We don't have many sports cakes tutorials on our site, but we do have a simple Golf Bag Cake Tutorial as well as a Football Stadium Tutorial! Make sure to check these out if you have any golf or football-loving friends and family! :0)

Enjoy the Video!

Thanks so much for stopping by. We'd love for you to let us know in the comments below if you give this soccer cake a try!

Keep this tutorial in mind whether you are making a soccer ball cake, or just need a spherical shape for your next cake project.

43 Comments

My grandson birthday is this weekend and he loves soccer so I'm making this cake for him. (Well im gonna try to make it) lol!!!By the way when are you doing the tutorial for the baseball because on March 1st I need a baseball for a first birthday party. Thank you soo much for the videos. God bless you.

One more question can I use candy melts to make gunache?

Hi Melissa this is so perfect and neat. May we please have the link for the fondant recipe. I tend to have problems with wiltons fondant reaping or even wrinkling quickly while I am laying it on my cakes.

@Elvira-- I'm glad that you are making it! I'm not sure if we will have the baseball cake done by March 1st but hopefully! If not, just send me an e-mail and I'll try to walk you through it ;0) --

@Mircha-- Thank you! I'm sorry, I meant to include a link to the Liz Marek fondant-- Here it is!! --

Thank you much Melissa.

Hi Elvira, I haven't used candy melts to make ganache. I think you could use it though it would not firm up as hard as chocolate and it may not give you the taste your want.

Sorry if this question has already been asked ...what type/ brand of white chocolate works best? Are you using bagged chips, the boxed squares, etc? Thank you for the help :D

Hi this is a great vedio I was just wondering can you do the same with buttercream icing as you did with the garnache what the reason why you didn't use buttercream? Thank you

Hi Melissa! Finally i got to see the video today. I really loved it. I would like to know that if we have to put the ball on another tier how are we going to place it on that? I've seen two tier cakes with a soccer ball on the top.
Thanks

@lisabakescakes~ We used Ghirardelli brand white chocolate chips for the white chocolate in our recipe. This is usually our go-to for white chocolate and we've had good results with it!

@patricia-- Ganache sets up firmer than buttercream, and considering the shape of this cake, it just gives me more peace of mind to have that firmer shell to keep everything nice and secure. However, we plan to experiment with the same cake in buttercream and will report back the results. If you want to try it in the meantime, I would recommend keeping the buttercream frosted cake chilled until close to the time of the event. The refrigerator will keep the cake nice and firm.

@Sadia-- Thanks! I would treat it just as any other tiered cake. The soccer ball is on it's own (small) cake board and so I would just make sure to dowel beneath, and I would assemble on site if at all possible, just to be on the safe side.