another golf ball cake! chocolate cake filled with chocolate mousse and covered with cream cheese buttercream

Since my coworker's dad loves golf, he asked me to make a golf ball cake for his dad's birthday.  So I made an 8-inch version of this cake that I made last month (based on a golf ball cake at Love & Olive Oil), but this time I made a chocolate cake filled with chocolate mousse.

I used my favorite homemade chocolate cake recipe, which I baked in two 8-inch pans.  Once they were baked and cooled, I started on the chocolate mousse filling (the same recipe from America's Test Kitchen that I use for the middle layer of my triple chocolate mousse cakes).

Next I sliced off the tops of my cakes to ensure a flat surface.  After piping my chocolate mousse filling onto the first cake layer, I placed the second layer on top and then let the whole thing chill in the fridge while I started on the frosting (a cream cheese buttercream).

This time I added less green coloring to the frosting, since last time I thought the cake was too "green" and wanted a lighter effect for this cake.  I did a quick crumb coat of frosting over the entire cake, and then a second smooth coat on the sides.  And then it was time for the fun part - piping the grass!

I started by piping the perimeter of the cake with my grass tip, then filled it in until the entire top was covered.  Then I finished it off with a grass border on the bottom of the cake.

The final touch was a white chocolate golf ball that I made with my golf ball candy mold!

This time, the cake took me about 4 hours to make, from start to finish.  Now I just have to practice making large 12x17 cakes - the last one took me 12 hours to make!

golf ball cake - chocolate cake with cherries jubilee filling

My friend Bonnie recently asked me to make a cake for her husband's 40th birthday dinner, and I was excited because I hadn't seen her in years!  Among the things that she mentioned about her husband included his love for golf, as well as cherries jubilee ice cream.  So I decided to make a chocolate cake filled with cherries jubilee whipped cream filling.

As for the golf theme, I was a little undecided on what I wanted to do with this.  Initially we thought that I could pipe the Pebble Beach logo on top of the cake.  Or, I could decorate it with white chocolate golf balls, which would look similar to the golf ball cake pops that I had made a while back.  And then, I stumbled accross this cake at love & olive oil via foodgawker - it was such a cute and clean design (and not overly cheesy considering it was a golf ball cake)!  I immediately wanted to make it!

Bonnie only needed enough cake for 10 adults, so I made it a 6-inch cake.  For the chocolate cake layer, I used my favorite homemade chocolate cake recipe.  While that was baking, I started on my filling. I found this recipe at Epicurious for cherries jubilee, and proceeded the make the cherry sauce.  (The only thing that I changed was to add a little bit of corn starch slurry at the end to thicken the sauce.)

I had never had cherries jubilee before so I had no idea what it was supposed to taste like; it ended up tasting like caramelized cherries, but not with an overwhelming cherry taste.  So I pureed the sauce, and then mixed a portion of it with cream cheese, to give the filling a bit more tartness.  Then I made a batch of whipped cream, which I then folded into the cherry cream cheese mixture.

Once the cake was cooled, I put the first cake layer on an 8-inch cake round, and then piped on a layer of the filling.  Then, to add extra cherries jubilee flavor, I brushed on some of the sauce onto the top of the second cake layer, which I then inverted onto the filling layer.

For the frosting, I made a batch of buttercream, and then added a stick of cream cheese to it at the end (as I find regular buttercream too sweet, and I love the tang of cream cheese in a frosting).  I added just enough green coloring to suggest the color of grass, and then use an offset spatula to apply the first "crumb coat" layer of frosting.

After letting that set in the fridge for a half hour or so, I applied the final "smooth" layer of frosting.  I didn't worry too much about making the top super smooth, as that would end up covered with piped grass.

Then came the fun part.  Using a special tip that has multiple holes, I covered the top of the cake by piping on "grass".  And then I piped on a "grass" border on the bottom of the cake as well.

For the golf ball decoration I used white chocolate and this golf ball candy mold, and I made a few just in case there was any breakage.  The first step was to cover the insides of a few of the golf balls of the mold with melted white chocolate, and then placed it in the fridge for them to harden.  This would be one half of each golf ball.  Once they were set, I popped them out of the mold, and then repeated the step to cover mold in chocolate.

Then, before the chocolate hardened, I topped each one with the other half of the golf ball from step one.  This way, the new chocolate would harden with the other half attached to it, to form a complete golf ball.  I chose the best looking golf ball out of the ones I had made, and placed it on top of the cake.

The final touch was a little birthday banner that I made out of craft paper, thread, and bamboo skewers - similar to the ones I had made for the Superman cake and the Thanksgiving birthday cake.  I tried to stick with "manly golf colors" that would go with the color of the cake, but I guess you can only get so manly when it comes to a festive birthday banner!

It was so great to see Bonnie again after so many years, even if it was only for a few minutes when I went to drop off the cake.  Happy Birthday to her hubby Dave!  Hope everyone enjoyed the cake!

*** Update: Made a second golf ball cake here!  Except this time it was an 8-inch cake and filled with chocolate mousse!

golf ball cake pops

We recently returned from a three week vacation, visiting my husband's family in Hawaii.  Needless to say, I haven't baked at all in the past month!  Instead, I'll share with you the golf ball cake pops that I made a few months ago, which I never had time to post ... until now!

My friend Cindy has a friend who was interested in having me make cake pop favors for her upcoming wedding, after learning that I had made the cupcake pops at Cindy's wedding.  She specifically wanted the cake pops to look like golf balls, and asked me to make a dozen as samples for her and her family to try.  I immediately ordered these golf ball candy molds, and set out to make golf ball cake pops!

I started by making my favorite homemade chocolate cake recipe.  Once cooled baked, I broke up the cake and pulsed the pieces through the food processor in batches.  Then I made a batch of cream cheese frosting, mixed it into the cake crumbs, and formed the mixture into little balls.  I covered them in plastic wrap, and let them chill in the fridge while I went about preparing the melted white chocolate for the coating.

After melting the white chocolate in a double boiler on the stove, I dipped one end of a lollipop stick in the melted white chocolate, and then inserted that end into a ball of cake.  Then, instead of dipping the cake pop into the melted chocolate like I would normally do, I brushed the inside of the golf ball mold with melted chocolate and then pushed the cake pop into the mold.

After they set in the fridge, I popped each one out of the mold, brushed more melted chocolate into the inside of the mold, and pushed the other side of the cake pop into the mold.  I only had one mold so I could only do one side of the cake pops at a time.

The first few weren't pretty.  The seams were messy where the two halves of the golf balls came together.  And I didn't coat enough melted chocolate on the inside of the mold, so the dark cake showed through the thin coating of white.  I guess I didn't learn my lesson after making white hello kitty cake pops with chocolate cake inside!  Next time I will remember - use a light-color cake when using white chocolate coating!

But after a few batches, they started looking better.  The seams looked smoother.  And the cake didn't show through as much, because I made a mighty thick coating on those golf ball molds!  (Although, this lead to other problems - when eaten, the white chocolate felt way too thick and would crack heavily, leading the cake ball to fall off the stick.)

I'll definitely try making these again someday.  And as they say, practice makes perfect!

*** Update: You can also check out this link to see the golf ball pops made by Jasmin of 1 Fine Cookie, who was the first to come up with the idea of using a candy mold to shape the golf balls!

*** More updates: I used the same candy mold to shape golf balls as cake toppers!  You can find the golf ball cakes here and here!