How to Make a Football Helmet Cake

My boys (meaning my children and my husband) are the biggest Auburn football fans that I have ever seen, which made this past Monday quite an event at my house.  Auburn played in the BCS national championship.  Better yet, they won!  It had been over 50 years since Auburn had been a national champion.

In honor of this momentous occasion I made some football helmet cakes for the boys.  Here is one of them.  The other one was devoured before I could take a picture.  Let me show you how I made them.

I baked a 5" round, a 6" round, and 1 half ball pan for each helmet.  Stack these in the order listed with frosting in between each layer.  I used chocolate ganache.

Using a sharp knife, carve the cake.  I started by cutting away the face opening.  Then cut to smooth the sides.  Taper the cake so that the layers will not be visible.  This can be a messy affair.  Don't worry, just clean off the crumbs when your done.

Here is another angle after most of the mess has been cleaned up.

Cover the cake with frosting or ganache.  I chose the ganache for flavor and for its smooth coating.

I like how dark the ganache is.  It was perfect for the face opening in the helmet.

Next, cover the cake in white fondant.  Cut out the face portion revealing the ganache.

I used a large piping tip to cut out the ear whole.

I printed the logo measuring 2" wide to use as a pattern.  Using a knife, cut the logo out of  thinly rolled, orange fondant.

This will make the first layer of this logo.

Using a rule and pizza cutter, cut two 12" long, 1/2" wide strips of orange fondant.

Attach the orange fondant pieces with a little water.

I started the orange stripe at the front and cut off the excess at the back.

You will need two strips of the dark blue fondant.  I cut these a little narrower than the orange.

Attach one blue stripe on each side of the orange stripe.

Here is a view of the back.  I'll show you how I covered the raw ends in a moment.

For the rest of the logo, I took the same pattern as before and cut out the dark areas.

Using a sharp knife, cut out one set for each logo.  Attach these pieces with a little water.

In this photo, you can see the finished logo.

For the snaps I cut circles out of gray fondant with a #12 piping tip and made an impression with a #7 piping tip. These get attached with a little water on the side of the helmet and painted with a mixture of vodka and silver luster dust.

Next, roll a long snake of white fondant.  Attach this to the edges of the helmet with a little water.  This will cover all the unsightly cut edges of the fondant.

Roll a piece of white fondant about 1" tall by 2 1/2" wide.  Apply this to the back of the helmet covering the raw ends of the color stripes and the "snake" edging.

For the face mask, roll a long snake of modeling chocolate.  (you can find a recipe and instructions for modeling chocolate here.) Cut this snake to length and form the face mask on a round container that is as wide as the face opening on the helmet.  Put in the freezer until firm.

Once the face mask is firm, simply remove it from the container and place it against the helmet.

Almost done.  The last thing to do is brush the blue and orange portions of the cake with vodka to bring out the vibrant color, and paint the "War Eagle" on the back of the helmet with a mixture of vodka and black food coloring.

There you have it, an Auburn football helmet.  Hmm, the super bowl is coming.  Do any of you know some die-hard fans?  This same technique would work with many different helmet designs. 

You can find more cake making tips and instruction at That Really Frosts Me.com