Cricket Bat Birthday Cake

Usually when baking a birthday cake for someone I know, I would spend hours and hours deciding on a theme. But this was an easy one for me. My favorite cousin had planned a surprise birthday party for her husband, who happens to be a huge cricket fan. And what better cake than one shaped like a cricket bat for a guy who eats, sleeps and breathes cricket, right?…

I baked a quarter sheet Marble cake and carved it using a thin cardboard template of a cricket bat. I then stacked smaller pieces of cake to build the raised portion of the bat, frosted it in chocolate buttercream, chilled it, and later covered it in fondant. And since the birthday boy happens to be an all rounder, there had to be a cricket ball on the side. It was a styrofoam ball, slightly carved and covered in red fondant. The stitches were small, thin strips of white fondant. A real cricket ball is supposed to have six rows of stitches, but after rolling, cutting and sticking four rows of those teeny tiny fondant pieces, I was done. The grass was green royal icing, and the scoreboard was made of fondant.

Needless to say, the Man of the Match was very happy with his cake, and almost didn’t want to cut it… 😀