Barcelona Soccer Ball Cake

No matter how many ball cakes you have made in your life!! The Barcelona ball is different!! Why? Because the only way you can achieve this effect is with an airbrush. There is no cutting individual fondant and hexagon or pentagons in color and lining it up to make a complete ball. I must admit I did have fun making this cake and was so happy with how it turned out. The lady friend who asked me to make this cake for her son was so happy that I gave her a ball looking exactly like the real soccer ball. Was such an amazing response from her.

How did I make this cake?

In my post – how to make a Perfect Sphere Cake – I shared three different methods and techniques to get a perfect sphere. One of them is using a foam ball as a base. This was an 8″ ball pan which means not so small and quite heavy. Plus I made it in here hot summer of May!

Take an 8″ foam ball (or the size of your cake)Cut the bottom part of the ball.I used 1/3 of the ball for an 8″ ballOnce you cut the foam base – make a cake circle the same size as your base.Glue the two together with hot glue. (see image above)Then wrap the whole thing in foil to make it food safe.A large ball cake needs a center dowel not just for stability but makes it easier to work too.Place a center dowel thru the form andcontinue to stack cake /frosting on the foam cake board base.Follow the process just as you would for a regular ball cake.

Once I had the ball covered in white fondant I then used a Dresden tool to score the Pentagon and hexagon lines on this cake. For this cake, I am using my homemade Marshmallow Fondant. You can use any fondant. Commercial or any of my homemade fondant recipe and Homemade Vegetarian Fondant too.

How do you measure the pentagon and hexagon for a soccer ball cake?

Now I must confess I know how but I’m always lazy to do it. So, I get my husband to do it on powerpoint for me.

Basically, you measure the circumference of the ball in inches.Multiply that number by two and then divide it by 30.So for example –if the ball pan circumference is 20 you will – multiply that 20 x 2 = 40 – divide that 40 / 30 = 1.3 inchesThis is the measure in inches for the sides of your pentagon and hexagon.I then use this measure to create my pentagon and hexagon on power pointI printed it then made cutouts of that with card paperUsed it as a template all around my cake.

Once my pattern was all marked, I used a stitch tool to create the stitch lines. Then I let the cake dry so the fondant won’t be too soft for airbrushing.

Airbrushing the cake

I had to airbrush the cake in two intervals. Just so the color won’t’ go blotchy. The blue and red are pretty dark. You have to use quite a bit to get that intense color in such cases it is best to airbrush and wait for an hour or so. The colors will dry and deepen which will give you a sense of how much more you need to airbrush. For this, I used airbrush colors – red and blue Then I waited for an hour or more and airbrush it again. For the Barcelona logo, I created an edible print out.