Baking project no.2 - Footballer cake

 

Two more sleepless nights (and black food colouring spilled all over my white top - thanks to Baby O for helping) to get this done for my bro’s mini family celebration over the weekend. Plus another few nights tossing and turning in bed before that thinking of a design. He’s a *cough* ManU supporter as well as a Simpson fan. I was torn between a Bart Simpson figurine or a footballer. Somehow went for the footballer since it was World Cup fever and all...

My footballer (only one attempt this time! Yay!) ended up looking a lot more proportioned and satisfying compared to the previous beach girl figure on my beach-themed cake. I think the head and hair looks better too! However, fondant is SO difficult to work with as it is a lot softer so they will melt and make the figure sink down. I had to add icing sugar and corn flour to harden it as much as possible but too much of it causes cracks. 

I used the same carrot cake recipe but kept it in a cool place and not in the refrigerator this time. The carrot cake tastes softer when not refrigerated. However, the cream cheese frosting this time is too sweet and too liquidy to spread on.

As usual, I loved the part where I put on the details. The footballer's eyes look better than the beach girl's, I think. I added ears this time too. I molded the football, details of the jersey the night before putting them on the figurine so that they will harden which makes it easier to handle. I also thought of crafting a goal post initially but ran out of time which was probably a good thing since it was only a small cake say about 6 inches in diameter with not much space to play with. And since it was a small cake (we don't really eat a lot of cakes at home and the seven of us couldn't even finish this one), there weren't many details I can play with vs the beach-themed cake.  That meant I could spend more time 'perfecting' the footballer itself. Fun! Fun! Fun!

We had to ferry the cake back from Penang to Ipoh for the celebration. Sadly, Mr Footballer didn't arrive in one piece. His right foot fell off and this was later followed by one of his arm. He also sank a little into the cake. Need a solution to this. I suspect it is because of the amount of icing and corn flour added to stiffen the fondant to prevent it from sinking. Too much causes cracks as mentioned and this leads to a higher risk of things falling apart after being put together as in the case of Mr Footballer. The icing/flour also makes the fondant looks matte instead of glossy like some of those cakes I see online. Hmm.. Need more excuse to practice!