I'm going to make a 3-d soccer ball cake this week and I am using buttercream. Any tips? I'm a little worried about smoothing it out. Anything would be awesome.

TIA

I have done two soccer ball cakes, but didn't do the full 3D. I used 1/2 the sports ball pan and placed it on top of a one layer 8" round.

I frosted the bottom in green and used the grass tip all around the soccer ball. As far as the ball itself, I just iced it white, piped out the lines in black, then filled in the black. Once I did that, I just piped in the white areas. Let it sit and smooth out just like any other time.

It does take being a little careful not to smear it too much, but if it crusts enough, it isn't too bad. I can post pics later of the ones I've done.

These are smaller but the ornaments in my pics are from the small half ball pan. What I did was crumb coat then let it crust then iced again and used the viva paper towel method to smooth. I also froze them so they were easier to ice and handle.

did you not get bubble after you iced them? Thanks for all the tips. I'll make sure to post pictures.

Why not use fondant? I found a fantastic way to get a very realistic look is to frost the ball in buttercream and smooth it with Viva paper towels as suggested. Then use the templates from the Wilton ball pan to cut out hexagons from white fondant and black pentagons from either colored fondant or candy clay. Then you just piece them together. I can't figure out how to attach a picture, but check out the soccer pictures in my "Got game?" gallery of my website. If this direct link doesn't work, try getting there from the link in my signature...

sweetfavorsbynancy.com->ENTER->galleries->got game

http://sweetfavorsbynancy.com/index2.php?v=v1#/gallery1/2/

My friend had asked for buttercream otherwise I would do fondant for my sanity's sake haha. I like the way yours turned out though. piecing it out gives it much more dimension.

This is in Italian but you can watch her make a soccer ball. She starts covering with fondant around the 11 min mark on part one.

haha, I just watched that from the other forum post. I actually was thinking that her ganache seemed really thick. Or is it just me?

I thought the ganache seemed a bit thick too. I just started a new post asking if there was a template or pattern for making the sections on the ball even? Sorry, i don't mean to hijack this thread, but any help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance!

Anxietyattack, thanks so very much! It is the wilton pan. The last time I tried eyeballing it and lets just say I was unsuccessful!

I used my middle sized RevereWear metal bowl to make the ball and trimmed it on the bottom to make it look more round.

I used this youtube video to figure out how long each side of the shapes would be:

I used this information and pulled up a Word document. Go to Insert and Shapes and the computer will make the hexagon and pentagon for you. You can change your shape. I printed and cut the templates out.

I used a toothpick edge to press into the crusted buttercream. I refrigerated the ball well and used super black gel to paint the black areas.

I placed the ball on a 10" round layer.

You can see it in my photos.
Good luck!