Looking for Football Cake Ideas That Your Kids Will Love? You’re in the right place, whether you’re simply looking for inspiration to place an order with your local baker, or whether you want to recreate one of these cake designs yourself. Here, you’ll find 16 football cake decorating ideas, including easy designs with instructions to recreate these beautiful cake ideas.
How to find a football cake idea suited to your cake-decorating level?
I’ve come up with a system. The cake ideas are presented to you according to their level of difficulty. There are three categories :
What Are Beginner Cake Ideas?
These are the easy cake ideas. If you’ve never decorated a cake before (or only did it once or twice), these are the cakes that you should pay attention to.
- What you’ll find: Beautiful cake ideas that only require basic cake decorating techniques. This is a great place to start your journey.
What Are Intermediate Cake Ideas?
Low Intermediate Baker: If you are confident that you’ve mastered the cake decorating basics, such as how to smooth a cake, but feel like you still have a lot of techniques to learn apart from this foundation, this category is perfect for you.
- What you’ll find: Football cake ideas that require both basic decorating skills and one or two more advanced techniques. This is a great place to grow your cake-decorating skills.
High Intermediate Baker: If you’ve mastered both basic techniques and several more advanced cake decorating techniques, these cake ideas are made for you.
- What you’ll find: Stunning cake ideas that can be fairly challenging, but are a great place to get even better than you already are.
What Are Advanced Cake Ideas?
If you consider yourself an experienced cake decorator and have mastered most of the decorating techniques, including the use of fondant, then this is the perfect place for you.
- What you’ll find: Showstopping and challenging cake ideas, perfect to sharpen and maintain your skills.
The Grading System
Finally, I’ve also assigned a grade of difficulty to each cake inspiration: 1/5 being the easiest design and 5/5 being the hardest. You will find this to be particularly helpful if you happen to fall in the Beginner or the Intermediate Cake Ideas categories.
Growth Tip : This list is great a place to set goals about your cake decorating skills. Pin this post and come back later to tell us how far you’ve come in your cake decorating journey !
How to recreate these football cake ideas?
What cake recipe should you use?
To recreate these cake ideas, you will need a trustworthy cake recipe. You have several options.
Adapt your favorite cake recipe
There are a lot of ways to adapt a cake recipe. You mainly have four options to tweak your favorite recipe :
- You could change the flavor of your cake recipe: with citrus zest, the essence of your choice, or turn it into a chocolate or carrot cake for example.
- You could add a filling: a caramel sauce, a flavored homemade whipped cream, ganache, or buttercream.
- You could also add some texture: oreo bits, crumble crumbs, nuts, or fresh fruit for example.
- Finally, you could also personalize your frosting.
Here, you can really have fun and create a cake that suits your needs. For example, if you’re creating a cake for children, one option that they could love is a Twix cake. I use my favorite vanilla cake recipe and add a caramel filling and shortbread crumbs between layers. Then, I cover it all with a rich chocolate ganache.
Be careful, if you’re a beginner baker, having to figure out both your cake design and creating a new cake recipe could be overwhelming. Therefore, I always recommend taking your learning journey one step at a time.
Look for a cake recipe
Where? You can ask friends, or family or simply look on the internet. You have to keep two things in mind :
- The recipe has to be suitable for cake decorating, especially for cakes that require stacking or carving (intermediate and advanced cake ideas).
- Once again, if you’re a beginner baker, be careful not to put too much on your plate and choose a recipe suited to your current level.
Use my cake recipe recommendation
Finally, you could try the delicious recipe I recommend. I firmly believe everyone should have a trustworthy chocolate cake recipe, and my chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting is perfect for beginners. I’m sure you’ll love it.
What you will love about this recipe :
- It has a perfect chocolate flavor.
- It’s a really easy recipe.
- It has a great texture.
How to follow the instructions of the designs.
For the cake designs in the beginner category: I’ll provide written instructions on how to recreate the cake ideas presented to you. I’ve also included quick video tutorials about the basic techniques such as how to smooth a cake.
For the designs in the intermediate category: I’ll provide some advice and quick video tutorials to explain the more complicated techniques to you
For the advanced category: you are an experienced baker, at this point, and you will find great opportunities to put this experience to use. To be completely honest, I cannot make myself several cake ideas from the advanced category, so trust your abilities and go for it.
Find the perfect football cake idea for your baking skills.
Growth Tip : If you aim to get better at cake decorating, you should choose a cake idea that feels sligthly above your current cake decorating level. Get out of your comfort zone !
Football Cake Ideas Perfect for Beginner Bakers
Here, you’ll find 4 easy football cake ideas perfect for beginner bakers.
Easy Football Cake
Difficulty Level: 1/5.
This cake design is the perfect football cake for beginners. As a newbie, you can only use the most basic techniques, so you have to take advantage of premade cake toppers to elevate your cake designs. Here, you can easily adapt the design to the colors of the team you support.
What you will need:
- Enough frosting to cover your cake
- Football-themed cake toppers.
How to recreate this cake?
- First, you must crumb-coat the cake to avoid any crumbs in your final design. Apply a thin and even coat of frosting with your offset spatula all around your cake.
- Smooth it with your bench scraper, holding it at a 45-degree angle on the cake while spinning your turntable. Your bench scraper isn’t supposed to move, only turn the table.
- It doesn’t have to be perfect as it only is the first coat. Chill the cake 20 to 30 minutes in the fridge (until your frosting sets).
- Then, apply a thicker coat of frosting and repeat the smoothing operation. Fill in any gaps and smooth the cake again. Repeat this operation until the cake looks smooth enough for you. Here, you’ll find a video tutorial of the covering process, if needed.
- Chill your cake again for 15 minutes.
- Cut the top edges of the cake with a hot knife to get sharp edges.
- Finally, decorate your cake with your football cake toppers.
What you’ve learned :
Covering a cake in frosting is the foundation of most cake decorating ideas and you’re now able to do it yourself.
Favorite Football Player Cake
Difficulty Level: 1/5.
You could also decorate your cake based on your favorite football player.
What you will need :
- Enough frosting to cover your cake.
- Football-themed cake toppers.
How to recreate this cake?
- For the cover of the cake. First, you must crumb-coat the cake to avoid any crumbs in your final design. Apply a thin and even coat of frosting with your offset spatula all around your cake.
- Smooth it with your bench scraper, holding it at a 45-degree angle on the cake while spinning your turntable. Your bench scraper isn’t supposed to move, only turn the table.
- It doesn’t have to be perfect as it only is the first coat. Chill the cake in the fridge for 20 to 30 minutes (until your frosting sets).
- Then, apply a thicker coat of frosting and repeat the smoothing operation. Fill in any gaps and smooth the cake again. Repeat this operation until the cake looks smooth enough for you.
- Chill your cake again for 30 minutes.
- Cut the top edges of the cake with a hot knife to get sharp edges. Here, you’ll find a video tutorial of the covering process, if needed.
- To recreate the paint strokes. Color what’s left of your buttercream in the color of your choice. Then, simply put very thin layers of it with your angled spatula where you think it will suit.
- You can either leave it as is or smooth your cake one last time with your cake scrapper to get a flatter finish.
- Finally, decorate the cake with your cake toppers.
What you’ve learned :
An easy way to elevate the look of your cake is to add texture to the buttercream cover.
Blue Football Cake
Difficulty Level: 1,5/5.
If you’ve mastered the foundation of cake decorating, adding a layered buttercream to your cake is an excellent way to elevate its look.
What you will need :
- Enough frosting to cover and decorate your cake.
- Football cake toppers
- Gold edible paint (buy it or DIY it using extract and gold luster dust as explained here)
How to recreate this cake?
- For the cover of the cake. First, you must crumb-coat the cake to avoid any crumbs in your final design. Apply a thin and even coat of frosting with your offset spatula all around your cake.
- Smooth it with your bench scraper, holding it at a 45-degree angle on the cake while spinning your turntable. Your bench scraper isn’t supposed to move, only turn the table.
- It doesn’t have to be perfect as it only is the first coat. Chill the cake 20 to 30 minutes in the fridge (until your frosting sets).
- Then, apply a thicker coat of frosting and repeat the smoothing operation. Fill in any gaps and smooth the cake again. Repeat this operation until the cake looks smooth enough for you.
- Then, place your sprinkles on the wet buttercream.
- Chill your cake again for 30 minutes.
- For the second buttercream layer line. Color what’s left of your buttercream in the color of your choice.
- Apply a uniform layer of your colored buttercream around the bottom half of your cake.
- Smooth that new layer of buttercream with your cake scrapper, just like you did for the first layer.
- To recreate the texture on this second buttercream layer, use a cake comb as you would a cake scrapper, making several passages around your cake. Make sure to clean your cake comb between each passage.
- Chill your cake one last time for 30 minutes. Then cut the top edges of the cake with a hot knife to get sharp edges. Here, you’ll find a video tutorial of the covering process, if needed.
- For the edible gold paint. Once your buttercream is set, simply dip your brush in your golden edible paint, and create splatter by pulling back on the bristles with your fingers and releasing it. Repeat until satisfied with the results.
- Finally, decorate the cake with your cake toppers following the pictures or your heart’s desire.
What you’ve learned :
Layered buttercream and paint splatters are popular and easy ways to elevate the look of your cake designs.
Football Cake Ideas for Intermediate Bakers
Here, you’ll find 8 football cake ideas perfect for intermediate bakers.
Glittery Football Cake
Difficulty Level: 2/5 (Low-Intermediate)
Glitters and sparkles are perfect to celebrate birthdays. If that’s what you’re looking for, this is the cake for you.
A little guidance
In this case, to recreate this glitter cake, you’ll have to cover your cake in buttercream, and then create texture with a cake comb. Finally, use a glitter airbrush to cover your cake in sparkles in the most uniform way possible.
Fault Line Football Cake
Difficulty Level: 2/5 (Low-Intermediate)
If you’re looking for something a bit more sober and traditional, you should love this cake.
A little guidance
To recreate this fault line cake, apply a second layer of buttercream stopping where you want your fault line to end, and smooth it with your cake scrapper. To make things clearer you can watch this quick video tutorial.
Football Field Cake
Difficulty level: 2,5/5 (Low-Intermediate)
This football field cake would be perfect for a kid’s birthday party.
A little guidance
To recreate this football field cake, you’ll need to use a grass piping tip all over your cake. Be careful not to press your piping bag too long to keep your blades of grass short enough and get a neater finish. Use fondant for the boundaries of the field.
Simple Green Football Cake.
Difficulty Level: 2,5/5 (Low-Intermediate)
As you recreate more and more advanced cake designs, you will probably have to work more and more with fondant, which opens a whole new world for cake toppers. This cake doesn’t necessarily require the use of fondant but recreating the footballs would be a great start.
A little guidance
To recreate footballs with fondant you can easily follow this quick tutorial and upscale or downscale it as needed.
Football Cake With Cake Crumbs
Difficulty Level: 3,5/5 (High-Intermediate)
This cake is perfect for a football-themed birthday party and will allow you to get more comfortable with fondant if you’re not used to it.
A little guidance
To recreate this football pattern, cut black and white hexagons following a paper pattern or using a cookie cutter. Then, stick them to the side of your cake with a little bit of water, following a football pattern.
Elegant Football Cake
Difficulty Level: 3,5/5 (High-Intermediate)
This cake is a more elegant version of the previous cake design. It would perfectly suit a teen’s birthday.
A little guidance
To recreate the football pattern, follow the tips provided with the previous design. And, don’t forget to wrap the stems of your leaves and flowers, if you use fresh ones.
Realistic Football Cake
Difficulty Level: 4/5 (High-Intermediate)
Even if it is a dome cake, it actually is easier to cover than usual cakes because each piece of fondant is applied individually, as opposed to one piece of fondant to cover the whole cake, which reduces the risks of tearing.
A little guidance
To recreate this design, simply cut white and black hexagonal fondant pieces following a paper pattern or with a cookie cutter. For your football to be a bit more realistic, recreate the stitches of the ball on each piece of fondant. Then stick all the fondant pieces to your cake following the pattern of a football.
Favorite Football Team Cake
Difficulty Level: 4/5 (High-Intermediate)
Now that you’ve acquired all the basics of cake decorating, it’s important that you learn how to cover a cake in fondant.
A little guidance
My three tips when covering a cake in fondant are the following:
- You should pay extra attention when preparing your cake. Make sure it’s leveled, and your buttercream (or ganache) should be very neat to get a cleaner finish.
- You should roll your fondant to a thickness between 1/8th inch and 1/4 inch.
- You should keep in mind that your first attempt probably isn’t going to be flawless, but it’s perfectly fine because practice will make your technique perfect.
Finally, here’s a detailed video tutorial, that’ll teach everything you need to know about this process.
Football Jersey Cake
Difficulty Level: 4,5/5 (High-Intermediate)
Finally, one last technique you should probably practice at least once before moving on to the advanced cake designs is cake carving. This Football Jersey Cake is a great beginning as it is not the most complicated one.
A little guidance
If you need a little guidance you can watch this video tutorial of a realistic football jersey cake. You then will have to cover your creation in fondant, which can be challenging but you can lean on the tips provided with the previous design.
Football Cake Ideas for Advanced Bakers
Finally, you’ll find 4 complex football cake ideas for pro bakers.
Golden Football Cake
Difficulty Level: 5/5
If you’re looking for a more elegant cake design this is the cake for you. It will definitely be a showstopper at whatever kind of celebration you choose to make it for.
Tiered Football Cake
Difficulty Level: 5/5
This cake reunites all the visual symbols of football, and I can assure you that any kid would go crazy for it.
Football Team Cake
Difficulty level: 5/5
This cake is super cute and would be perfect for your child’s birthday, especially if he’s part of a football team.
Gravity-Defying Football Cake
Difficulty Level: 5/5
This cake obviously is a work of art, and its defying cake topper makes it stand out. It would be perfect for a teenager’s birthday.
Did you enjoy these football cake inspirations? Sharing is caring!
Please let me know in the comments and/or tag me on Instagram @theperfectcakeidea. I’d love to see your creations. And, don’t forget to pin this post so you can come back to it.
Pin this post and come back to it later.
