Philadelphia Phillies Baseball Bat Cake

Cake Facts

• Velvet Pound Cake or Chocolate Chip Pound Cake(double this recipe-fills 9 +6 inch or 2- 8inch round pans)
• Ganache
• Vanilla Cream Cheese Frosting
• Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting
• Marshmallow Fondant
• Simple Cake Syrup  – 3 parts water, 1 Part Sugar(for example 3 cups water, 1 cup sugar, combine in a small sauce pan over medium heat, stir until sugar is dissolved, bring to boil, brush the sides of the pan with water and let for boil for couple of minutes, longer you boil the syrup, thicker it will be, boil for about 3-4 minutes maximum. Remove from heat and let cool to room temperature. Add 1/2tsp of vanilla extract, 1/4tsp almond extract and 1/8tsp lemon extract, stir well. Pour syrup into an airtight container and store in the fridge until ready to use. Bring to room temperature before using.

  . Philadelphia Phillies Baseball Bat Cake Picture Tutorial

• Print a baseball bat template, you want to make sure the bat is up to scale, I find this to be the hardest part with the carving the bat

• Bake the cakes, I baked 2 pound cakes in 9×13 pans. Let the cakes cool, cut them in half, wrap them in plastic wrap, put cake into a large freezer bag, and then freeze them. It is best to use a plain pound cake for the cake that will be carved.I made a mistake of baking both cakes -chocolate chip pound cake, chocolate pieces get stuck in the knife when carving and it makes for a painful process.
• Once ready to carve the cake, take frozen cakes out of the freezer
• One 9×13 cake will make for one baseball  bat another 9×13 cake will make for the base–grass part
• Trace baseball bat onto a cake using a food pen
• Cut out the bat shape

• Carve the 1st part of the bat, if needed put the cake into the freezer again, it helps to have a chilled cake when carving, also avoid using chocolate chip pound cake for carved cakes, use plain cakes when carving the cake. Bat itself is made out of 2 pieces of cake, see the pictures
• Prepare a suitable cake board
• Position  2 rectangle cakes(pieces that will serve as grass) onto the cake board, using a bit of ganache to adhere cakes to the cake board, brush them generously with cake syrup  and then ice the top with ganache and carefully position bat pieces on the top
• Ganache the whole bat smooth, using a hot water and small spatula, keep dipping spatula in hot water and  smooth the ganache on the baseball bat

• Once your bat is smoothly iced with ganache, brush it gently with simple syrup
• Roll out  the blue fondant and cover  the front of the bat, using sharp knife to cut away excess 
• Continue with red fondant
• Using a clay gun, make white strips/ropes, brush the pieces with simple syrup to adhere them onto to cake. * make sure you use a clay gun only for food, do not use a clay gun that has been used with polymer clay

•  Using the Phillies logo template, cut out  the base for logo  from blue fondant

• With a clay gun make the stripes
• Cut out  the bell from white fondant using a template as well, attach all the pieces onto the blue base using a bit of simple syrup for the glue. How to make a simple template
• Designing a Template from a picture
• Position finished logo onto the cake, using royal icing pipe Phillies across

•  Add PHILLIES name on the side of the cake, using mini alphabet cookie cutters, brush each letter with simple sugar before applying it onto the cake

• Frost the cake, sides with chocolate icing and top with vanilla icing tinted with green for the grass, use a grass piping tip