Pirate Ship

In honor of National Talk Like a Pirate Day, we have made this cake:

We came up with the idea and quickly sketched out some plans and decided what materials we would need. Throughout the process of building the cake we experienced a range of emotions. At first the cake was looking like a brown rocket ship, but we persevered and eventually the finished product is quite obviously a pirate ship. We are very pleased with the outcome.

The cake is made of three layers of 9" x 13" sheets. For fun, we used one layer of yellow cake, one layer of chocolate, and one layer of strawberry; it's a Neapolitan style cake!

We are using boxed cake mixes for convenience, but making our own icing. This time we used a recipe for creamy white icing, and added a half cup of cocoa powder for coloring. The cocoa powder had a dual effect by taking some of the sweetness out of the icing, which usually isn't a good thing, but in this case, it was alright. Creamy white icing is sugary!

After stacking the layers we used a knife to carve out the boat shape. Kathy iced and styled the wood planking. Paul created deck rails, a bow, and a rudder housing using cocoa crisped-rice treats. The mast is made from skewers wrapped in fondant, colored with black food coloring. The sail is also fondant, colored with yellow and red food coloring, and rolled out on the same spot as the black fondant. Residue from the previous coloring helped give the sail a weathered look.

Kathy fashioned the "skull and cross-bones" out of fondant and black food coloring "paint." We made a cannon out of fondant and housed it between two chocolate covered graham crackers. Malted milk balls were used as a pile of reserve cannon balls nearby. The anchor and chain were formed from fondant, along with the ship's wheel. A few candy blocks round out the deck's accoutrement, stacked neatly by the mast.

For water we used some blue colored frosting accented by white frosting; a technique we learned while making a tropical island cake last week (we'll post pictures of it soon). The whole cake took a few hours to put together and was a lot of fun. With each cake we make we feel more capable and learn new skills. If you have ideas for a cake, post them in the comment section, we are always looking for new ideas!