Golf Inspired Birthday Cake

My hope was to share this cake yesterday, but I didn’t get home until after 9pm. However, it was such a hit, you get to see it today! Today is my Dad’s birthday (Happy Birthday Pops!); but he had plans today so we celebrated yesterday afternoon. Overall it was a very Golf themed birthday; he got golf clothes, golf balls, tickets to a golf tournament, a golf cake, and today he’s…wait for it…golfing (shocker!)

The tournament tickets and golf cake were my contribution and I think they went over quite well. It was also pretty easy since I used store bought cake and mix. The love was in the decorating.

The Goods:

• 1 Box Dark Chocolate Cake Mix (plus eggs, oil, water, etc)
• 2 Cans Vanilla Frosting
• Green Food Coloring
• Cake Decorating ‘Grass’ Tip (bought at Michael’s for less than $2) & Pastry/Plastic Bag
• Small Juice Glass

Since I would be transporting the cake,I also purchased some disposable 13×9 baking tins. They worked out great since they came with a plastic lid and my dog wasn’t able to attack it in the car on the drive to my parents house. Although, he did some major sniffing and had his eye on it the whole time.

Following the boxed instructions, I made a Dark Chocolate Cake in the lightly greased tin. I actually made this cake on New Years Eve, allowing it to cool overnight so I could frost it first thing yesterday morning.

On Sunday morning I pulled out the frosting supplies.

To ensure that the grass frosting stuck to the cake, I did a very thin layer of vanilla frosting. I think the professionals call this something like a ‘crumb coat’. I am not a professional cake decorator, that will become very clear, but I did pick up a few tips by watching all those cake decorating reality shows.

Next I greased a juice glass…

…and pressed it upside down into the cake. This was to create the golf hole.

Press the glass all the way down to the bottom, twist slightly, and slowly pull it back up. Remove the entire cake circle.

Use some of the cake that was pulled out and crumble it into the hole to cover any of the tin that is showing. Eat the rest (of the circle, not the cake)!

Set the cake in the fridge so that the first layer can firm up while you color the rest of the frosting.

I’m a little bummed with the food coloring that I purchased from the grocery store. It would be perfect if I wanted pastel frosting, but I wanted a dark green to simulate grass. It took almost half the bottle of coloring to get the frosting dark enough.

I happen to have some disposable pastry bags, but you could also use a Ziploc bag with the corner cut off. Insert the decorating tip and you’re ready to go.

This is where I realized the difference between homemade frosting and store bought. Store bought frosting is softer and will fall, where as the homemade butter cream would have created stiffer blades of grass. However, I don’t own any type of mixer (other than my own arm power), and I certainly wasn’t going to hand mix butter cream frosting. If you are using store bought, I would recommend putting the colored frosting in the fridge for a bit to firm up, decorating will be easier.

These were my very first attempts at using the grass tip, it took a few practice rounds to get the hang of it. When I did these I hadn’t refrigerated the colored frosting and it was starting to slump a bit since it was too warm.

I have a new found respect for cake decorators…this was tedious.

Not bad for a first time decorator with store bought frosting. I think it looks somewhat grass-like.

Once we were at my Dad’s house, we popped a (clean) golf ball into the hole.

The cake was a big success, in fact we didn’t even wait until after dinner to eat it. I think we waited a whole 10 minutes before having the first slice. We even bypassed candles and singing.

It was that good!

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Linking To: Craft-O-Maniac, The Girl Creative, Everything Under the Moon, Today’s Creative Blog, Ginger Snap Crafts, Blue Cricket Design, Very Merry Vintage Style, We Are THAT Family, Savvy Southern Style, The Shabby Creek Cottage, Beyond The Picket Fence, The Artsy Girl Connection, The Crafty Nest, Addicted 2 Decorating, The Shabby Nest, Dear Creatives, Ohh Baby! Designs, The Not So Functional Housewife, Funky Junk Interiors, Positively Splendid