Football Helmet Cake

My sister’s husband is an avid football fan.  More specific, he is a Jets fan. I know… No comment.
Therefore, for his 40th birthday, she requested a football helmet cake to celebrate his birthday.  While, I am always up for a challenge, I know nothing about football.  My exposure to football, is the Superbowl.  I must admit, I really watch for the half-time show.  Shocking… This might change in the future, but for now I had to ask football fans (shout out to the pit crew) and researched the helmet.  My plan for this cake was to make it as close to the real helmet as possible.

I printed a few images of the Jets helmet; specifically the front, the side and the back view.  I discovered that there were different types of helmet.  Oh man… I had to pick one.  I did not get hung up on making it to scale, if you know me, this was very hard to do.

Hut.. Hut.. Hike….

The cake was a red velvet cake filled with a cream cheese frosting and my delicious Italian Meringue buttercream.  I baked three eight (8) inch rounds and one half sphere.  When the cakes were baked and cooled (I placed the cakes in the refrigerator to get cold for carving), I stacked the cakes one on top of each other and cut out the front of the helmet.   I had to use a spoon to get inside.

Easy right… Then, it was time to fill the cake. Because the cake was a bit high, I added a board and dowels inside.   Once the cake was settled, I crumb coated and chilled.  The next step was the final coat of frosting.  I checked the cake in the morning and realized I needed to take a bit more off the front of the helmet cake. After, This I was very happy with the look of the cake, it was time to add the fondant.  I used white fondant with a small amount of green for the decorations.  I painted the fondant on the cake board green, then added the cake to prepare for the mask.

The Mask

Of all the things with this cake, I was most nervous about the mask.  Why, because I was not sure if I should make it ahead of time and if I did whether it would fit.  I decided I would make it on the cake using pastillage.  Pastillage drys really fast and hard.   Problem number one, the pastillage was not coming together like I wanted.  The pastillage kept breaking and I spent so much time playing around with it, I ended up using gum paste at the last minute.

The gum paste worked very well.  I added the gum paste to the front of the cake and used some of my modeling tools to hold it up and keep its shape.  The chin strap was added as well.  When I checked it the next day, I was very happy with it.   I started the very long and tedious journey of making the logo, at this point I was very exhausted and after making the first one, I realized It was going to take too long.

I cheated and purchased the logo on edible sheets.

Whoo hoo…. Another cake done….