On Sunday I am making a cake for my buddy's son's first birthday. For the smash cake, its going to be a soccer ball, using the sport ball pan. I'm really intimidated by it, but the more I read, the less scary it seems.What I'm most concerned about is having it tip over when I transport it.

The main cake is something else that's causing me grief. It is going to be a football theme, so I was going to do a 9X13 made to look like a football field, and have one layer of a Wilton Course 2 oval pan, carved a bit to look like a football on top. Do I need dowels under it? Is there a good way to torte and fill a 9x13 cake?

My inlaws are taking the kids on Friday, so I was hoping to make it Friday night or Saturday morning. Can I freeze it after its been decorated? (its going to be BC. Any fondant accents can be added on Sunday right before I deliver it.)

Thank you SO much to whoever can help me through this!

use no edged cookie sheet to lift off top of sheet (i dust mine w/ powdered sugar to make easier on/off)

some cut the cake and then freeze it before removing top (i don't).

tort and fill just like normal.

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for that small of a topper cake dowels not needed - tho' a cake board will make for easier removal for serving.

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yes can freeze it --- BUT -- best if done INSIDE some type of sealed box and allowed to come to thaw and come to room temp still inside the sealed box so you don't have problems with condensation that might cause colors to bleed and run.

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on sport ball -- trim off a little flat section to it doesn't go rolling away from you. The terror there (for me at least) would be that pattern

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looking forward to pictures.

Thanks, Doug! I appreciate the help, and will probably be back for more questions as I'm preparing to do it.

The soccer ball pattern does seem intimidating to me, but I've decided to adopt a "nothing ventured, nothing gained" approach to my cakes. We'll see if that ever starts paying off

Well, the cakes were delivered today, and they were a huge hit. I had people ask me if I was for hire, but sadly... I'm not. Darn HD. Anyway, back to how everything turned out:

9x13 football cake: Doug, your advice *really* helped me to torte and fill it with no problems. I had tried it a long time ago, and broke my top layer into 4 big pieces. This time everything went very smoothly!

My FBCT turned out pretty okay. The tail on the Patriots' logo thawed out basically instantly and stuck to the wax paper, but I just popped it back into the freezer for a while, then quickly placed it and blended the seam as best I could with a small paintbrush.

Soccer ball smash cake:
The sport ball pan wasn't nearly as scary as I thought. The only mistake I had was not filling the pans up enough, so its a little odd shaped. I tried to fill it up with BC in the middle just to give it some height, and I guess it worked out okay. Next time will be much better.

The soccer pattern proved to be impossible for me. I traced the pattern onto wax paper and cut it out, just as the directions said, and still couldn't do it correctly. Finally, I decided to pipe stars over the entire thing and use fondant "patches" for the black area. I think it came out looking nice.

I never have any luck with uploading pictures, so I will just say they are the soccer ball and football cakes in my pictures. If you have any critiques for me, I'd love to hear them!

great job on both!