I had two challenges when making my son a Soccer Ball Cupcake Cake: I’m not great with icing, and a few party guests had food allergies. So I made a cupcake soccer cake. Some of the cupcakes and their icing are safe for those kids, but they don’t look any different than the other cupcakes, so those kids felt really included!
Wilton makes a sugar paper that I cut into the hexagon shapes for the soccer ball pattern, stuck on top of white icing. And the sugar paper also was safe for the allergies I was trying to accommodate, plus had a similar shine and smoothness to a real soccer ball! (And doesn’t taste horrible.. at least, all the kids ate it!)
As a mother of a child with food allergies I think it is GREAT that you were willing to include those kids and their needs into your cake. It is very hard to get people who do not deal with FAs to understand how important it is! I’m sure those parents really appreciated it! The cake looks great :)