Easy Football Field Cake
Cheer your football team on to victory with this easy and creative cake. Pudding and sour cream added to a chocolate cake mix creates a decadent fan-favorite treat!
Ingredients
Chocolate Cake:
- 4 eggs
- 1 cup sour cream
- ¾ cup vegetable, canola, or light olive oil
- ¾ cup water
- One 16.25-ounce box chocolate cake mix
- One 3.4-ounce box instant chocolate pudding
- ¼ cup unsweetened cocoa
- ½ cup sugar
Decorating:
- One 16-ounce container green-colored frosting or one 16-ounce container white frosting + green food coloring (if using a baking sheet, use 2 containers frosting), or 1 recipe Homemade Buttercream Frosting
- One 3-4 ounce jar rainbow nonpareils (sprinkles)
- White cake decorating icing, either premade or homemade buttercream
- Mini Goal Posts and Footballs, purchased at Amazon - OR - 8 pretzel sticks + chocolate for goal posts (see Notes for pretzel goal post instructions)
Homemade Buttercream Frosting:
- 1 ½ cups unsalted butter, cut in squares
- 4-4 ½ cups powdered sugar, sifted
- 3 tablespoons milk or cream
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- Pinch of salt
Instructions
Chocolate Cake:
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place rack in the center of the oven. Grease a 9x13-inch pan or baking sheet. Line bottom of pan with parchment paper if desired.
- Mix wet ingredients in a large mixing bowl until blended well. Add the cake mix, dry pudding powder, unsweetened cocoa, and sugar. Mix for about 2 minutes on medium speed, scraping bowl a few times while mixing.
- Bake in the prepared pan. Allow to cool completely.
- To make frosting the cake a bit easier, freeze the cake and then frost.
Decorating:
- Use green premade frosting or add green food coloring to either premade white frosting or homemade buttercream. (Using green food coloring creates a much truer green than combining blue and yellow food coloring to make green.) Frost cake.
- Cut a piece of parchment paper - or any type of paper - the length of the pan and 4 inches narrower than the pan. (For a 9x13-inch pan, cut paper to 5x13 inches. For a baking sheet, cut paper to 8x17 inches.)
- Fold paper in half widthwise, then in half again, and again. The paper will be folded in 8 equal segments. Unfold the paper and place in the center of the cake. Sprinkle rainbow nonpareils on frosting on the exposed sides of the cake to represent the "cheering crowds."
- Use a toothpick to mark the cake at each fold on both sides of the cake. Remove the paper. With a knife, make an indentation in the frosting between the toothpick marks, outlining the 50-yard line, 30, 10, and goal lines. Use as is, with the marked lines representing the yard lines, or use a piping bag with white frosting, fitted with a small round tip, to pipe the yard lines and numbers.
- Insert field goals on either end of the cake and add mini football. (See Notes for homemade pretzel goal posts.) Serve and enjoy while cheering your team on!
Homemade Buttercream Frosting:
- In a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, beat butter until smooth and creamy. Add half the powdered sugar, cream, vanilla, and salt. Beat on low until incorporated. Continue adding powdered sugar until desired spreadable consistency is reached. Turn to medium high and beat until soft and the frosting color lightens. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed. Reserve a portion of the white frosting for piping the yard lines and numbers. Use green food coloring to tint the remaining icing for frosting the "field."
Notes
- Mini Footballs and Goal Posts can be purchased here.
- Frosting a frozen or very cold cake is much easier than frosting a room temperature cake.
- We used a piping bag with the tip snipped off to pipe the lines and numbers. A heavy-duty plastic ziplock bag can also be used.
- For pretzel goal posts: On a sheet of parchment paper, arrange 8 pretzel sticks to resemble 2 goal posts. For each goal post, use 3 pretzels to form a U-shape and use the fourth pretzel as the post. Melt a handful of chocolate chips in the microwave in 30-second increments, stirring until melted and smooth. Remove melted chocolate from microwave and "glue" pretzels together to form goal posts. Place goal posts in the refrigerator to cool and harden.
- Use aluminum foil to form the shape of a mini football. Cover with brown-colored frosting or melted chocolate.
- Optional additions: Make pennant flags with your team logo using skewers and triangle-shaped paper to add to the cake. Add gummy bears or Sour Patch Kids as football players.