Pink vs Blue - Football Gender Reveal Party

This past weekend, some good friends of ours had a gender reveal party. I'd never been to one before and was so excited to help out with the party by supplying the cake. Since it was near the Super Bowl, and the dad used to play football, they decided to go with a football themed party. The party was so creative, everything fit the football theme perfectly. There was tailgate inspired food, Team Blue/Team Pink buttons, coolers for the diaper raffle, pink and blue goals, and scoreboards to keep the score of Team Blue/Pink during the games and activities. They even revealed the gender by throwing a football through the correct colored goal! We had a great time at the party celebrating with our friends and their families.

When my friend asked me to make the cake, I was thrilled to be a part of the celebration. I've never done a gender reveal cake before and I was honestly a tad relieved when she mentioned the cake would not be the actual reveal. She was finding out the gender a couple weeks before the party, and I was nervous about keeping that a secret for that long! I was so impressed that she continued talking about the baby without using pronouns, I would have probably slipped within a day or two.

This cake adds to my growing collection of sports themed creations - Super Bowl cupcakes, basketball cake, and a basketball court cake. My friend and I discussed the cake a lot and bounced off some ideas, and of course looked for inspiration on Pinterest! We decided to incorporate various ideas we found.


Here's how I made the cake:

A few days before the party I started working on the pompom and football. The pompom was deceptively difficult, my final version was probably my 10th or so try. For the pompom, I dyed some fondant pink. I started with a round disc of fondant for the center. I then cut out small strips of pink and white fondant and attached them using a small dab of water.

Once I had one layer on, I continued adding a couple more layers of strips to give it more of a 3D effect.

I made the football by dyeing fondant blue and rolling and pressing it into a football shape. I finished it off by rolling out thin ropes of white fondant and adding the final details. I also attached these details with a drop of water. The pieces need to dry at least 24 hours.

For the number of people coming, I needed a layered cake, I did an 8 inch on the top, and an 11 inch on the bottom. I baked and cooled both cakes, placing the 8 in on an 8 inch cake board and the 11 in on a 14 in cake board. The bottom cake got covered with white buttercream and was smoothed out using a non-design paper towel.

For the top cake, I covered the side and edge of the top with buttercream. I then smoothed it out.

Next I covered the top of the smaller cake with green buttercream and smoothed that out. Using a pasty bag with a small round tip (you can use a ziploc bag with the corner barely clipped), I piped on lines and a "50" for the yard line. I placed the pompom and football on.

Where the green and white buttercream met was a little jagged, so I decided to pipe on a border using the grass tip (Wilton #234). I thought the final effect gave it more of a football turf feel.

Using leftover pink and blue fondant, and small alphabet cookie cutters, I cut out "PINK" and "BLUE." I also dyed some fondant green and cut out "VS." I placed those on the buttercream before it crusted, so they were able to easily stick on. If the buttercream has already crusted, you can always add a dab of water to the back of the pieces.

Next, I dyed leftover buttercream to make pink and blue question marks around the bottom cake and along the back of the top cake. I also piped a pink pompom shape, and a blue football on the sides. I finished the cake off with rolling out small balls of pink and blue fondant for the borders.

Tip for stacking cakes: We were traveling a ways with the cake, so I actually assembled it at the party. It would probably have been fine to stack as is, but I positioned 5 dowel rods in the bottom cake to help stabilize the top. I then put the pink/blue balls around the top edge of the cake to finish it off!

We had a great time at the party and were excited to celebrate the upcoming arrival of their baby...BOY! Hopefully this will be the first of many cakes I get to make for his celebrations.