Football Cake

What's a football game without a football cake? Football season is a close second to the holidays for Southern hosts. Games every weekend require creative thinking and new ideas. Our Test Kitchen pros created this tailgate-worthy football cake for the occasion. This rich, moist cake is covered in a decadent chocolate frosting, making it a chocolate (and football) lover's dream.

Learn how to make a football cake. Even if you’re on the 10-yard line in party planning, it's a touchdown.

Ingredients for a Football Cake

This recipe requires classic baking ingredients and some creativity to turn cake into a football:

• Unsweetened baking chocolate: Unsweetened baking chocolate adds a dark chocolate, fudgy richness.
• Salted butter: Serves several purposes: as a wet ingredient creamed with sugar, balancing sweetness and enhancing the chocolate flavor.
• Granulated and powdered sugars: In this football cake and frosting, the sugars add the right amount of sweetness against the bittersweet chocolate.
• Egg: The egg’s protein helps bind ingredients and creates a rich texture.
• Cake flour: What makes cake flour better for cakes? Cake flour has a finer consistency than regular flour, helping ingredients be absorbed better, which makes for a fluffier and smoother cake.
• Baking soda and baking powder: Baking soda and powder act as leavening agents in this football cake, making it lighter and airier.
• Kosher salt: A pinch of salt can be lucky on football cake baking day. Salt enhances the deep chocolate flavor.
• Whole buttermilk: Buttermilk’s tangy taste adds flavor and helps to keep baked goods lighter. On a scientific level, buttermilk’s acid content reacts to bases (like baking soda or baking powder) to create carbon dioxide. This helps leaven cakes and make them flufflier. That same acidity also helps break down flour’s gluten.
• Vanilla extract: The sweetness of vanilla extract adds a flavor and enhances the chocolate in this football cake.
• Unsweetened Cocoa: Serves as a balancing point to the melted chocolate by further enhancing the flavor.

How To Make a Football Cake

This is an easy cake to make and bake. The creativity is in the frosting, but even that's easy with our step-by-step guide:

• Step 1. Prepare the oven and baking pan: Before you mix a football cake, preheat your oven to 350°F. Use cooking spray to prepare a 9-inch round baking pan.
• Step 2. Make the cake batter: Once the oven is preheating, microwave the chocolate until it’s melted and smooth. Combine the wet ingredients first: Beat the softened butter, and gradually add sugar until light and fluffy. Scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl. Add the egg and beat until combined. Add your melted chocolate into the butter, sugar, egg mixture and beat until combined.
• Step 3. Add dry ingredients and buttermilk: In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, salt and baking powder. Add the dry ingredient mix to the chocolate alternating with buttermilk until both flour mix and buttermilk are folded in, ending with the dry mix. Mix at low speed until blended. Stir in vanilla.
• Step 4. Bake the cake: Pour the batter into the prepared cake pan. Bake until a wooden pick comes out clean. Cool the football cake in its pan on a wire rack. Invert the football cake onto a wire rack and remove from the pan. Cool completely. 
• Step 5. Make the frosting: Microwave the chopped semi sweet chocolate, stir until melted and smooth, cool. Whip the butter until creamy, add the melted chocolate and blend. Next, add the powdered sugar, cocoa, milk, and vanilla; beat on high speed until smooth and creamy.
• Step 6. Assemble and frost the cake: To assemble your football cake, cut a strip out of the cake’s center. Remove the strip and set it aside. Push the two cake halves together to form a football shape. Frost the cake with the Chocolate Buttercream frosting. Place the vanilla frosting in a piping or Ziploc bag (with a hole cut out of the corner); pipe on lines and laces.

What To Serve With Football Cake

While a football cake is great alone, you can also serve it with vanilla ice cream, cookies-and-cream ice cream, or whipped cream. 

How To Store Football Cake

Store any leftover cake in an airtight container in the refrigerator to keep it moist. If you’re storing individual pieces or a partial cake, cover or wrap in foil. It will last up to 5 days if stored properly.

Can You Freeze a Football Cake?

It's better to freeze the cake for a football cake uncut and unfrosted. This helps maintain the integrity of the cake. Wrap the unfrosted cake in plastic wrap and aluminum foil or put in a freezer-safe airtight container. 

If you freeze the frosted football cake, wrap it in plastic wrap and aluminum foil, and store up to 3 months. Let thaw in the freezer overnight. The frosting may sweat and become sticky after thawing.

Do You Need a Special Pan To Make a Football Cake? 

While there are fun football-shaped cake pans, a round cake pan works great. If you cut out the center of the round cake and push the two halves together, you have a perfect football shape.

Editorial contributions by Amy Cipolla Barnes.