Hi all! Happy Super Bowl Sunday! I’m sure you’re all preparing your game day snacks and getting ready for the party, just like I am. I’m heading to a party full of Patriots fans, even though my husband and I are rooting against them (please don’t unsubscribe to my blog for that, though!). My job is dessert, so with a little help from my husband and some leftover orange juice, I have a fun and fitting dessert for the party: football-shaped cake. Here’s the recipe:

Cake Ingredients: 

• 2 cups sugar
• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 3 eggs
• 4 cups flour
• 4 tsp baking powder
• 2 cups orange juice

Topping:

• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter

First, preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease and flour an 11×15″ baking pan and set aside. Cream the butter, sugar, salt, and eggs together. Sift the flour and baking powder together into a separate bowl. Then, using a stand mixer or a hand mixer, alternate gradually adding the orange juice and the flour mixture, until the batter is well mixed.

Pour the batter into the greased/floured baking pan.

Bake for about 25 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean from the center. The cake will be super light when it comes out, so don’t let that fool you into thinking it’s not cooked! While the cake is still baking, combine the cinnamon and sugar for the topping.

While the cake is still piping hot, rub the 1/4 cup of butter over the top of the cake. The butter will melt and start to soak into the cake, and it makes it really delicious and moist. Then, sprinkle the cinnamon and sugar mixture over the top of the cake evenly.

Now, let the cake cool completely. This is where the recipe ends, but obviously it’s the Super Bowl, so I had to make it more football-related! I was originally planning to leave this cake in the sheet pan and decorate it to look like a football field, but my husband had the great idea to carve it and decorate it to look like a football (easier since the cake is brown to begin with!). Thus started the intense carving session.

First, we lined toothpicks up on the cake to make the shape of a football and its laces, etc. Then, using a plastic knife with short, sawing motions, I carved the cake to look like a football.

We had to very carefully lift out the corners of the cake that we weren’t using. Then, using two spatulas each, we transferred the cake to a serving platter. As in football, teamwork makes the dream work.

Next, I made a simple powdered sugar glaze that I use on lots of desserts. It’s made with ~1 cup powdered sugar and 2 Tbsp milk. These measurements can be altered to make your glaze thicker or thinner, depending on how much milk you add. In this case, you want to add just enough milk to make all of the sugar dissolve, but you still want the glaze to be fairly stiff so that you can maintain control over it while decorating.

When the glaze is done, you can either pour it into a Ziploc bag with a corner cut off, or use a pastry bag. Then, go to town decorating your football! It’s pretty easy- just draw a straight line in the middle and make some hash marks for the laces, and draw two lines, one across either end of the football. You can mark it out with toothpicks like we did for easier decorating. Your finished product should look something like this:

And that’s all there is to it! I’m pretty excited for everyone to dig into this. It has a really light orange flavor and the cinnamon and sugar is a nice, light and sweet touch. I hope everyone has a great and safe night enjoying the big game, and here’s hoping for an NFC victory!