These Jersey/T-Shirt cakes are super easy and are a big hit with the sports fans among us.  My jersey cakes have all been made for grown-ups if you can believe it,...there are a lot of happy Dads in my neighborhood!  Note that the name on the jersey is that of the birthday boy or girl, and the number is his or her age!  How fun is that!  Also, do not hesitate to make this cake for the fashionista in your family as well!  You can design your shirt based on their favorite shirt, outfit, work uniform, school uniform, pajama, baby onesie, etc.  These cakes are so simple, as follows…

1) Each shirt takes 1 cake mix, so to make 2 jersey’s, make 2 cake mixes according to recipe directions (yellow or chocolate work best) & fill both 9x13 pans as evenly as possible.  Bake cakes according to directions.

2) Once baked & cooled (refrigerate if possible so the cakes are more firm), you will need to follow the next steps for each cake individually.  First, move your cake to a flat sheet or cake board and get ready to cut using a serrated or steak knife if you have one.

3)  To make the cake shape, I simply first cut the bottom 1/4 of the cake off (the #2’ in the diagram below- about a 9x3 piece off the bottom) and save this to make the sleeves.  Then I cut an ~ 1 inch strip off each side (the #3’s below, about a 1x10 piece of cake on each side) and discard these pieces.  You now have the torso of the shirt (#1 below).  With the 9x3 piece of cake you’ve reserved (#2below ), cut a diagonal line down the middle, so that each triangle will become a sleeve (#2’s below).  Place the long diagonal side against each side of the cake & trim to make the sleeves the size you’d like.

4) Once you have your pieces all set, go ahead and crumb-coat and refrigerate.

5) Once cool, frost your cake to match your favorite team!  Use the internet to find just the right colors and font type & use your special person’s name & age for the shirt.

6) I always embellish the cake boards with some frosting baseballs for the ball jerseys (each ball is just a huge dollop of white frosting swirled into a ball shape with the cross-hatches piped on in red), and I used Ding-Dongs for hockey pucks and printed out the team logo from the internet on photo paper and cut out to place on top of the ‘puck’. 

Oh! For one cake I also made a baseball cap, which was simply a 1 & 1/2 quart glass bowl shaped cake (need 1 cake mix) and a 8x8 square shaped cake (another 1 cake mix) cut to the shape of a brim.  I frosted with the team colors and viola, a hat for your jersey!  This little side cake took no time at all once baked & cooled, so always remember that the little extra’s are what make baking your own cakes so much fun!