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Elizabeth's Kitchen Diary

Elizabeth's Kitchen Diary

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Pirate Ship Birthday Cake

Published on March 3, 2012 • Last updated July 18, 2014 by Elizabeth Atia
pirateshipcake1

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.
pirateshipcake2
Category: Cake, Chocolate, Recipe

About Elizabeth Atia

Daydream adventurer. Expat Canadian. Foodie. Calls Shetland home.

Previous Post: « Clara’s Arizona Devil’s Food Cake
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Comments

  1. Laura

    August 6, 2014 at 6:06 pm

    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 =)

    Reply
  2. Jason Puddephatt

    July 20, 2013 at 8:33 pm

    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.

    Reply
  3. Codec

    March 5, 2012 at 1:29 pm

    Brilliant – particularly the step by step pictures!

    Reply
  4. Anonymous

    March 4, 2012 at 3:29 pm

    Looks fabulous 🙂 Vxx

    Reply

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About Elizabeth

Adventurer. Expat Canadian. Foodie. Loves bikes. Calls Shetland home. Read More…

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“Every day is another chance to get stronger, to eat better, to live healthier, and to be the best version of you.”

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