How to Make an Earth Day Cake

My funny little Earth Day cake is something I’ve made for my sons’ classrooms for the past seven years. It’s very easy, as long as you have the right cake pan and a lot of green and blue food coloring. Bon apetit!

Decorating Supplies

You’ll need a Wilton Sports Ball Cake Pan and a pastry icing bag with star-shaped and writing nozzle tips. Also, you will need 2 Pillsbury Creamy Supreme Frosting in Classic White, blue and green food coloring, 1 tiny edible star sprinkle in any color other than green to mark your location on Earth, 1 thin wooden kabob to tape on to and display your clip-art made “Happy Earth Day” sign, and a globe and/or map of the world to reference all those crazy-shaped continents

Cake

Preheat oven T 325°. Follow the directions on the box, but also add in the extra box of pudding mix into the batter while beating. Grease each half-sphere pan with butter and dust with flour to prevent sticking. Divide the batter evenly and bake for 40 – 50 minutes in the center of the oven. Check at 40 minutes, but don’t be surprised if you need that extra 10 or more minutes in the oven. Test for doneness with a toothpick in the center as you would with any other cake.

Frosting

Scoop the frosting into two separate bowls and add blue food coloring to one, and green to the other until you achieve a deep shade so that the oceans and lands pop with color. Scoop most of the blue mixture into the pastry bag with a star nozzle attached.

Decorating

When each pan has cooled, and with the cakes still in their pans, slice the tops cleanly straight across so that each is becomes a perfect half-sphere. Then remove one and cut just a bit of the rounded end so that when it sets on a plate it will not roll. While still holding it, ice that newly flat end with a thin coat of blue frosting and continue frosting the sides halfway. Place it on a plate and frost the flat top of the cake as you would any two-layer cake. Remove the second half and place evenly on top to create perfect sphere. Using the pastry bag, make frosting stars all around the frost the entire cake, even over the thin layer toward the bottom.

Finishing Touches

With a clean pastry bag filled with green frosting and outfitted with the writing nozzle, begin making continents. Start at the top with an outline of Greenland, and work your way to North America and elsewhere. If you need a little help with the shapes, print out a simplified map and use its size and spatial relations as a guide. Next, find your location on the map and mark it with a colorful candy star sprinkle. To finish, make a sign from simple clip art that you personalize with Happy Earth Day greetings. Tape it to the kabob stick and enjoy.