How to Make Your Own Basketball Cake

This is a great cake to decorate for a young child and the level of skill is not advanced.

Even the novice cake maker should be able to make it. One of the problems with chemical color additives is that brown is not very successful so in this case I recommend a chocolate fondant which is less colored than normal and a little yellow added. In this case it is made with a marshmallow fondant with peanut butter added to make the marbled effect.

Ingredients necessary for the cake and decoration:

Cake

1 sheet cake (although an example is given here there are no weight issues with this cake so it is possible to successfully substitute and use your favorite sheet cake

Icing

Peanut butter butter cream

1x marshmallow fondant icing plus 3 or 3 tablespoons of fine peanut butter

Color a little red (cochineal is a natural dye) and leave a little white

Gel piping icing to write the message with Red piping gel

Other materials:

2 wooden barbecue skewers

Paper

Paper glue

White netting such as that found around soft fruits such as papaya or mango or Pipe cleaners or other bendie material such as a straw for the netting

St. Louis Gooey Butter Cake Recipe

This recipe comes from Rozanek's Bakery, St. Louis, Missouri. This bakery has been in business for over 60 years.

Ingredients

1 cup all-purpose flour

3 tablespoons granulated sugar

1/3 cup butter or margarine

1 1/4 cups granulated sugar

3/4 cup butter or margarine

1/4 cup light corn syrup

1 egg

1 cup all-purpose flour

2/3 cup evaporated milk

Method

In a mixing bowl, combine 1 cup flour and 3 tablespoons sugar. Cut in 1/3 cup butter until mixture resembles fine crumbs and starts to cling. Pat into the bottom of a 9-inch square baking pan.

For filling, in the mixing bowl, beat the 1 1/4 cups sugar and 3/4 cup butter or margarine until combined. Beat in the corn syrup and egg until just combined. Add the 1 cup flour and evaporated milk alternately to the mixing bowl, beating until just combined (batter will appear slightly curdled). Pour into crust-lined baking pan. Bake at 3500F for about 35 minutes or until cake is nearly firm. Cool in the pan on a wire rack.

Basic Marshmallow Fondant Icing:

The way the sugar is added is important, most recipes say put half the sugar in at once. If you do this and have added the corn then it will clump together. The sugar has been sifted to avoid it becoming crystallized, add the sugar slowly.

Ingredients

1lb white mini-marshmallows

2 tablespoons water

2 teaspoons corn syrup (optional)

2 pounds confectioners' or powdered sugar (approx. 8 cups or more), sifted twice two drops of almond essence. ½ cup Crisco shortening or more as needed

Method:

If you are using a mixer to knead the MMF, put the marshmallows, and water in the mixer bowl and place over a pan of hot water, make sure that the bowl is not touching the water. Once the mixture has melted cool for about five minutes and place on the mixer stand. Add a little Crisco to the paddle attachments.

If you intend to knead the MMF by hand then place the marshmallows and water in the microwave for a half a minute, just long enough to melt them, if they are still not melted pub back in for five seconds and repeat this until they are melted.

Take them out and very carefully stir with a wooden spoon, they are very hot and thin and accidents happen easily at this point. Add a little Crisco. If using corn syrup add now and stir with the wooden spoon or the mixer.

Add the confectioners’ sugar one cup at a time, and fold in until the mixture is not sticky before adding the next cup. When half the sugar has been incorporated knead by hand for about seven minutes, or use a bread hook on the mixer.

Whilst you are kneading dip your hands in a light coating of Crisco and knead it in. Use sparingly to start with, as the finished product will be sticky if you have added too much. Add a little more sugar once the last cup has been incorporated. If it is too hot to do by hand then use a wooden spoon. This mixture will become very stiff and resistant to handling as you add more sugar. Re-grease your hands and rework the MMF until it is smooth and elastic and pliable.

The whole process of kneading working the dough and adding the sugar should take about seven or eight minutes by hand. If you are doing it with the dough hook then keep it on low and knead for about four minutes.

Peanut Butter Frosting

Ingredients

1/2 cup butter, softened

1/2 cup peanut butter

6 cups powdered sugar

5-6 tablespoons of milk

1 teaspoon pure vanilla essence

Method

In large bowl, combine butter, peanut butter, sugar, vanilla, and 2 Tablespoons of milk. Mix well, adding more milk as needed to make a fluffy spreadable frosting. Any leftovers are great spread on graham crackers or digestive biscuits.

How to Bake and Assemble the Cake

Make the cake and cool for at least three hours, then assemble the cake on a board.

Make the fondant as instructed and work in the peanut butter to ninety percent of the icing. Leave enough white frosting to make back of the net and color the remainder red for the cake. Roll out the peanut marshmallow frosting until it is about 1/8th of an inch thick and lay over the cake and trim the edges.

Cut out two red “mats” and attach as shown on the cake in front of the nets. Cut out four small paper squares using the rim of a glass to make the template and glue the papers together with the skewers evenly between each of them. Lay the nets out to dry on a work surface for a few minutes, and then pipe the red piping gel around the edge and a square in the centre.

Cut out a red piece of icing in a round again using a glass to shape the edge and place half way between other red mats. Roll out two small balls for the balls and place them on the pitch.

Pipe the half way line in white with the piping gel as well as the markings around the mat, the three-point line, and the free throw line. Pipe the message on the cake and also the age in the centre square if the cake is for a birthday. Complete the nets by covering the pipe cleaners with red icing and bending them around to the shape of the net, glue to the paper and when it is dry cut the pipe cleaners into white and hang from the nets.

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