Anyone for tennis cakes....?

I'd originally planned to make these for the Wimbledon finals but for one reason or another I just didn't get around to it. Then it was the end of season tennis dinner last Friday so I decided to make these and sell them for Chris's charity....

Tennis Ball Cake Pops.

Step 1... (The tennis court)

To make the court I bought a chunk of AstroTurf from B+Q and a paper box from IKEA. Then I marked out a tennis court on the back of the A4ish section of Turf, dug holes at every corner with a bradawl and a screw driver and sewed a tennis court outline onto the astro turf with a bobbin and some string. Then I plonked an A4 chunk of polystyrene underneath the astro, to dig the lollipop sticks into later.
I could've done with fashioning a miniature net, I know, time ran out though sadly.

Step 2... (The cake)

Then I made the "Buttermilk Poundloaf" from The Hummingbird bakery cookbook and when it had cooked I mixed the crumbs of this with a batch of vanilla frosting (recipe from the same book) and rolled together small balls.


Step 3... (Making the "tennis balls" yellow)

After making the cake balls I dipped the lollipop stick into a small amount of the melted yellow "candy melts" that I had purchased from Hobbycraft online...
http://direct.hobbycraft.co.uk/search/candy%20melts
These are basically tinted chocolate that melts easily (it has a high oil content). Food dye added to chocolate splits and is hard to work with. These melts are far from natural and I thought I'd dislike the taste, I didn't though, they tasted just like a caramac from yester-year.

Step 4... (Finishing touches)

Put the cake pops in the fridge and when they have set, use a Dr Oetker or Silverspoon icing device to pipe on the rubber detail. I also bought a black pen with edible ink to draw on a Wilson, Nike or Slazenger logo but the damn thing didn't work at all. Then I used a small black cake gel and these smudged too, it had to be just a sprinkling of edible glitter and that was all.

Step 5... Arrange cake pops into pre-prepared holes in astro court.

Step 6... Use mini "Wilton" cellophane bags to wrap a cake pop in, and tie with gold curling ribbon.


In addition I made...

Tennis ball cupcakes.

These were lemon, with a lemon curd centre and cream cheese frosting.
I then made "toppers", which are a candy melt with rubber detail piped on as though they are a tennis ball. I was really very lucky that they hadn't melted in the post as the packet warns they often do and then I'd have obviously had one big chunk of yellow, not loads of little round yellow buttons that just said "tennis balls in waiting" to me. (God, I'm weird!)

Then I squeezed them all into the fridge overnight...

Finally, I stacked them onto Kellie's wedding cupcake stand. I had a lot of AstroTurf left over from my court (you could only buy it in a strip 2 metres in length) so I displayed the tower of cakes onto a faux grass table-runner...

And I also made a few signs to tell people what they were and how much they cost... (mini frames from IKEA) and got some takeaway cartons, gift boxes and green serviettes.

Game over!

Now I need to think about what I'm going to make for Ant's charity Softballathon...

J :)