Michigan Tailgate Cake: Hail To The Victors
This week Michigan played Illinois for homecoming and the tailgate theme was Brazilian Steakhouse. I wasn't really sure how to translate that theme into a tailgate cake so I decided to make a cake with the first line of the chorus of the Michigan fight song across the front.
I started by baking a chocolate cake in two oval pans and then whipped up a double batch of buttercream icing, tinting it blue. Once the cake had completely cooled I leveled the layers by cutting off the crowns. I stacked the layers with some icing in between and then added a thin crumb coat of the blue icing over the whole cake. 
After the crumb coat had dried I iced the cake with the blue icing and smoothed it over the cake. With the base of blue icing on the cake it was time for the fun part, decorating. I used marzipan that I tinted yellow to make the word "HAIL" and put that across the front of the cake. I also made a large block M and used skewers to make it stand on top of the cake. I added a little cocoa powder and copper tint to some more marzipan and made a little football to prop up in front of the block M.
As a final step I made another single batch of buttercream icing, tinting half of it yellow and leaving the rest white. I put both colors in piping bags and piped a star border around the base of the cake in yellow. I used the white to add "to the victors" and add some laces on the football.
Although the tailgate was a lot of fun, it was cold and toward game time it started raining. At the tailgate we were under tents, but we were completely exposed to the elements in the stadium. Being soaking wet and cold made watching the game a bit miserable but drinking a bunch of hot chocolate definitely helped.
Luckily the Wolverines dominated Illinois and when the score was 31-0 in favor of Michigan we decided that victory was ensured and it was okay to leave, watching the rest of the game back at the tailgate with the satellite TV under the tents. In the end Michigan won 45-0 for a decisive win. Bring on Sparty!
Do you root for any college teams? How did you spend your weekend?
Sunday, October 14, 2012 at 8:42AM | Posted by Lisa | 6 Comments | Share Article | Email Article | Print Article 
Reader Comments (6)
Looks delicious! I will definitely need to try your buttercream icing recipe. I'm a Tennessee Vols girl...
Rene- Thank you! I thought it turned out pretty tasty. One of my friends up here is originally from Tennessee and is a Vols fan as well.
I always rooted for my alma mater Benedictine in Kansas, and now we also root for our daughter's school, Northwestern.
Kathy- Northwestern is a great Big Ten school. I bet your daughter loves it. I was there for a Michigan football game at Northwestern last year and had fun. Northwestern is having a good season this year. Good luck for a good rest of the season, except when they play Michigan! ;)
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