I made this Pirate ship birthday cake for my youngest’s 3rd birthday.
I took two 9″ round devil’s food cakes…
… and cut them into equal halves.One of them I sliced off the top to make it flat…
…and sandwiched the layers together with buttercream frosting (you’ll need 3 x the quantity given in the devil’s food cake recipe for the whole ship). Keep the thinner layers in the centre. The rounded layers on the outside give a more rounded ship shape.
I then sliced the top off all 4 layers of cake to make a smooth base for the hull of the ship.
I rolled out half a package of ready-to-roll white icing and painted water on it using a paintbrush and green and blue food colouring.
I positioned the ship so that there would be room to pipe a message on the water and frosted the ship using an edging nib (I’m unsure of the correct term for the one with the straightish bottom and curved ridged upper edge – it’s the nib you use to pipe fancy edges on cakes). I left a little space between each ‘row’ to give the illusion of wooden planks. Rollos were used for portholes/ cannonholes and Quality Street Matchsticks were made into a ‘fence’ around the edge of the ship. I used thin dowel rods and black sugar paper for the sails and glued a skull and crossbones to the front (use Google images to locate one you like).
Tip: freeze the cake for an hour before you start decorating it – this helps keep crumbs from falling off and ruining your icing.
Mum of three, daydream adventurer, OU Life Sciences graduate, occasional crafter, ex-pat Canadian & quite possibly Britain's most northerly food blogger.
Laura says
Oh how clever! This is the sort of thing one of my nephews would love. Come to think of it, it’s the sort of thing I’d love being a massive PotC fan and an even bigger chocolate fan =)
Jason Puddephatt says
Made this for my sons birthday. The instructions made it so easy. Did cheat a bit by using Betty Crockers Devil Food Cake Mix and her Chocolate Fudge Icing. Piccie here: http://t.co/L0rAIDOoQA.
Codec says
Brilliant – particularly the step by step pictures!
Anonymous says
Looks fabulous 🙂 Vxx