How To Make A Football Pitch Cake

You don't need a football pitch cake tin to make the perfect cake for your football-obsessed child!

By following this football pitch cake recipe, you can easily prepare an impressive football pitch birthday cake, perfect for any soccer party. Put your cake decorating skills and creativity to the test with this inventive football pitch cake!

If you are after more baking inspiration, why not take a look at our football cake recipe, or this guide to making a guitar cake!

What You Need:

For the football cakes: 710g all-purpose flour, 450g unsalted butter (at room temperature), 600g caster sugar, 8 large eggs (at room temperature), 480ml milk, 2tbsp baking powder, 2tbsp vanilla extract, a pinch of salt

For the frosting: 200g unsalted butter (at room temperature), 360g icing sugar, 680g cream cheese, 2tsp vanilla extract

For the decoration: green ready-to-roll icing, a white icing pen, two goal cake toppers (optional), toy football players (optional), a small amount of black and white fondant (optional)

Equipment: Two 33cm x 23cm (9"x13") sheet cake tins, an electric whisk or mixer, a cake board or large plate

Method:

1) Preheat your oven to 180°C (350°F). Place an oven rack in the centre of the oven. Grease your cake tins with some softened butter or margarine. You could also line them with baking paper for extra safety.

2) Start to make your football pitch cake batter: in a bowl, mix and whisk the flour, baking powder and salt.

3) In a different bowl, beat the butter, caster sugar and vanilla extract with an electric whisk (medium-high speed) until it becomes light and fluffy. This should take 3-5 minutes.

4) Add the eggs to the butter and sugar mixture one at a time, keep beating well. Turn the whisk or mixer to low speed and add a third of the dry ingredients, then half of the milk. Keep alternating and mixing until you have added all of your ingredients.

5) Divide the cake batter between the two cake tins. Smooth the top of the mixture with a spatula or spoon.

Bake the cakes for about 35 minutes. To check whether they are ready, insert a knife or a toothpick into the centre of the cakes: it must come out clean before you can take it out of the oven. Once they are out of the oven, place the cakes on a rack to cool for at least 15 minutes.

6) While you wait for the football pitch cakes to cool, make the cream cheese frosting: with your electric whisk or mixer, beat the butter until it is light. Add the icing sugar and keep whisking until the mixture becomes fluffy. Add the vanilla extract, then the cream cheese, gradually. Beat until the ingredients are fully incorporated.

7) It's time to assemble your football pitch cake! Once your cakes have cooled down, remove them from their tins and flatten the top with a bread knife. Place your first cake on the board or plate, add a layer of frosting on top of it and place the other cake on top.

8) Use the remainder of the frosting to cover the entirety of your football pitch cake, including the sides. Roll out the green fondant icing thinly, wrap it around your rolling pin, and gently place it onto your cake. Smooth out the icing with your hands and trim any excess with a knife.

9) Now for some cake decorating! Take the white icing pen and draw on the lines which delimitate a football pitch: one on the edge of your rectangle, one through the middle, a circle in the middle and two rectangles on either side where the goal posts are. If you are unsure of the design, refer to a photograph.

10) To complete your football pitch cake, you could add any toppers you have at hand: toy football players, toy goal posts, a toy football... If you don't have any toppers, you could make goal posts out of white paper or toothpicks.

You could make a football out of white and black fondant icing: simply roll white icing into a ball and cut out tiny squares of black icing to place on top. There you have it: the perfect football pitch cake for your football party!

Tips And Recommendations:

If any of your children are allergic, you could substitute the plain flour for a gluten-free alternative like spelt.

Although it is best eaten fresh, you can make this football pitch cake in advance and stored in the fridge in an airtight container for up to five days! You can also freeze this cake by leaving it in the freezer in an airtight container for up to two months.

You can make this football pitch cake with your favourite sponge cake recipe, or any other cake of your liking (chocolate, lemon drizzle, fruit cake...). You could also flavour the cream cheese icing with cocoa powder or any extracts you have in the house!

If you are unable to get your hands on ready-to-roll green icing, fear not: here is an alternative football pitch cake decorating technique!

Simply whip up another batch of cream cheese frosting (the recipe is in step 6 above, just halve the quantities), reserve a quarter of the mixture into a smaller bowl and mix in a teaspoon of green food colouring to the rest.

Stir it in and add colouring until you get a vibrant colour which looks just like astroturf. Prepare two piping bags: one with the white frosting, and one with the green mixture.

Start by drawing on the white lines of the football pitch with the white frosting, then fill in the rest of the top of the cake with the green frosting - there's your alternative football pitch cake!