Tennis Shoe Cake (Nike Max Global Court Shoe)

My 2nd sneaker....what fun!  This was for my Father-in-Law and the 3rd tennis themed cake I've created for him.  I already have an idea for what I want to make him next year too =)

So here are some of the photo's on how I created a replica of the Nike Max Air Global Court Shoe as seen here:

Carved cake

Crumb Coated in IMBC

The entire shoe is carved out of cake.  A Banana Cake crumb coated in Italian Meringue Buttercream (IMBC) and decorated over with Marshmallow Fondant (MMF).

Here are step-by-step photo's of the 1st sneaker cake I did 2 months ago:  Running Sneaker Shoe Cake

I basically followed the same steps as I did on the Running Sneaker Cake and worked on a well chilled cake removing it out of the fridge a couple hundred times to measure and fit each piece of the shoe together - keeping the cake cold also helps with keeping the IMBC firm and easier to work with.  It's a long and tedious process assembling the shoe section by section and it felt like I was "sewing" together a real shoe =)

Photo's of the shoe with scaled measurement and cutting out the "Nike" out of black MMF

Just getting started is always a challenge...what to do 1st and where to place that very first piece so all the other pieces miraculously fall into place is challenging.  I think the best part to start on is the very front toe area of the shoe and then move up to the middle with the shoes tongue.  Once that gets pieced together, I assembled the sides followed by the details along the very bottom of the shoe and lastly, assembled the back heel and the ankle opening.

Right before adding the shoe laces

Close up o the shoe laces 

Excited to share how I used clear piping gel to create the air pockets  =)
I did a thin layer 1st, let that rest and set overnight then added another layer over that...worked perfectly!

Outer side of the shoe

Inner side of the shoe

To finish it off, I dusted some of the grey areas in pearl dust to give it some shine and look more like the same plastic-like material on the shoe.

The one thing that was out of proportion which I wished I paid more attention to was to make the top "ankle" opening wider...once I was done, I noticed that I was about an inch short and couldn't fix it.  I had my scaled measurements down correctly on paper but in the midst of assembling the cake, I lost track and never went back to remeasure and double check.  You just have to have tiny ankles to get into these shoes - LOL!

Shoe Size:  9.5 US
Shoe Dimensions:  10x5x3 inches