Hi all

I have an order for a large 3D basketball cake coming up, and wanted a bit of insight or advice on the best way to go about it.

The diameter of the ball will be approx 13 - 14 inches, and I was thinking I would make the bottom hemisphere out of RKT and have a few wooden dowels vertically placed in the RKT, supporting a round 13-14" cake board. I was thinking upon this I will build and sculpt my upper hemisphere of real cake layers (using a cardboard half way up and straws to support the uppermost part). Then I was going to ganache it and use modelling chocolate to make the outer basketball design.

Is this the right way to go about it? Does anyone else have an easier alternative? I was originally going to use a styro hemisphere, but my foam guy says its hard to cut a curved hemisphere (he works better in 2D shapes).

Thanks in advance

Eva

Hi,

Yes, sounds like you have it mapped out correctly. I would do the same thing, use RKTs if there is no foam available to me.

Good luck

Hi!
I am making a 3D basketball cake for the end of season party for my daughter's basketball team.
I am wondering why RKTs are needed for the bottom hemisphere? I was planning to bake two cakes, each in pyrex bowls, hold them together with wooden skewers and then ice and decorate as a whole.
Any help is appreciated! Thanks in advance.

I made a full size basketball cake completely out of cake. I stacked 6 square cakes, not sure exactly the size of the pans...I used my basketball to judge , as it was a few years ago, one of my first cakes. I carved it sphere shaped. doweled it half way through. Turned out great.

I've used Pyrex bowls too and they come out fine. But I also bake some rounds (1 or 2) that can go between the two bowl shapes. This is how I did a fishbowl. The problem with the Pyrex bowls to me is that by the time it's level, it's not as high as I'd like. And with the bowls be sure to let it cool a bit before turning out or the cake will split as it cools.......learned then hard way from other Pyrex mishaps! Level as best you can while still in the bowl and then cool larger surface area down once out of the bowl.Good luck!

I think few replies here missed the part where the OP typed that she needs the diameter to be 13-14 inches, so that's nowhere the size of a real life basketball, right? I assume a basketball would be around 8-9 inches, perhaps (IDK, really)?

So for a diameter that big, RKT might be a better option for the bottom half of the sphere, I tend to agree.

I just did a cake for a Bar Mitzvah in which the theme was basketball. Because I was extremely afraid of the ball falling apart, I simply bought 2 regulation sized basketballs from the $5 and below store and used fondant to mold around the ball. I molded half on each ball so that when the molds were dry I could put the two halves together to make one whole ball. I used royal icing to "glue" the halves. Then, i used orange edible sparkles around the entire ball and cut out black fondant icing for the lines around the ball. The cake was fantastic and everybody loved it. They did not care that the ball was not cake only that it was all edible. I tried to attach a picture but the site would not allow it, the picture size was too big. You can look it up on facebook. Type in Randi's Creative Cakes and all of my pictures will come up. Hope this helps.