sweet baseball

by Deborah Godfrey
(Enterprise, AL)

I baked a 9 inch 2 layer cake and layered them with buttercream icing. I also baked a 1 layer square cake and iced it in buttercream and then used a cake comb on the surface. I chilled the 9 inch cake for about an hour in the freezer to make it easier to sculpt. I then used a sharp steak knife to cut out the shape of a catcher's mitt, using a real mitt as a model. I crumb coated all the nooks and crannies with buttercream icing, then put it back into the fridge while I made the white chocolate fondant. {at this point, I made the ball out of the cake scraps that I cut off of the mitt, rolling it with frosting mixed in and pressing in my hands to get the ball shape. I then put it in the freezer for about an hour}.
I colored the fondant with brown paste food color. I made a small amt. of it darker than the rest for contrast. I rolled out the fondant using cornstarch to prevent sticking. I carefully layed it over the sculpted cake softly pressing it down into the sculpted crevices including the depression for the baseball. {If the cornstarch leaves a white residue on the fondant, wipe clean with a dry paper towel before placing on the cake}. I made the "leather stitches" out of the darker brown fondant, pressing the ends into the mitt with end of a small paintbrush. {The wooden end}. I also painted a drop of water where I was placing the "stitches" to help them to adhere. I airbrushed with brown color to add shadowing in the crevices and to show "wear" in the "Leather".
The ball was iced with buttercream and chilled for 15 minutes; then I covered it with 3 layers of white fondant to get a smooth surface. I painted a little water in the depression of the mitt and placed the ball in it. The stitches are red buttercream. This cake was decorated on a small board cut in the shape of the mitt with an exacto knife.
The square cake was airbrushed with green color; then I used 6 small dowels for support before placing the mitt on top. I finished around the edge of the mitt with rolls of fondant at the base. I used red buttercream with the "grass" tip around the base of the square cake.