Thursday, 5 April 2012

Pirate Ship Cake



So my darling youngest charge, little C, had her 4th birthday last week. As you can probably guess from the picture, she is more than a little obsessed with pirates. After much teasing about her having a princess party, I finally caved and made her much requested pirate ship cake! I must admit, it turned out a lot better than I had hoped. I'm rather proud of this one!


It's got a plank!


This cake was actually remarkably straightforward to make. It started off its life as a simple tray bake of vanilla sponge:



Then it was just a matter of stacking and shaping the cake:





After shaping the ship, I then filled the layers with chocolate buttercream:


Then covered it all in chocolate buttercream, after cutting the dowels to size. To make the wooden effect, I piped chocolate buttercream onto the ship, then smoothed it with a pallette knife to give the effect of planks:






This was the bulk of the cake complete. Just decorations left. I decided to keep these simple, just cannons, windows and a plank. These were made out of coloured fondant and left ot dry for 2 hours before attaching to the ship.




After everything is dry, I added some sails. This was done using paper burnt at the edges pushed onto wooden skewers. I also piped some blue vanilla buttercream around the ship to look like waves. One pirate ship complete! 





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22 comments:

  1. Mary7 July 2012 at 08:59

    A Truly Fabulous Pirate Ship Cake! I'm just about to make one for my 8 year old son's birthday tomorrow, thanks for sharing how you did it.

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    1. Truly Scrumptious7 July 2012 at 09:22

      Thanks Mary - you'll have to let me know how it goes!

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  2. Mary13 July 2012 at 06:04

    The pirate ship turned out fantastic better than I had hoped, thanks for sharing your step by step instructions with pictures. I have entered the Lifestyle channels cake competition check out my cake https://apps.facebook.com/cakerevolution/cake.php?id=3195
    Thanks, Mary

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  3. DaddyJohn15 May 2013 at 12:15

    My oldest will be 5 in a few weeks and has told us he wants a pirate cake. Looking at some they seem so complicated with fancy decoration and icing, then I came across yours. It looks just as good and seems so simple compared to many of the others. Think I may look through some of your other recipes as my niece has her 4th birthday coming up too. Thank you for sharing your creations...

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    1. Truly Scrumptious15 May 2013 at 12:47

      Thanks DaddyJohn! Good luck with the baking - I'd love to see the finished product. Keep your eyes open for some new posts soon - a fondant monkey tutorial will be coming online shortly (great for little monkey's birthday cakes!)

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  4. Caitlin22 August 2013 at 16:54

    This is gorgeous and by far the best i have seen whilst googling! my son is 4 next thursday and has suddenly requested a pirate ship cake!cue mad panic from me! but these step by steps you have are brilliant! im actually excited to try it !! i dont have any dowles though do you think kebab sticks would work ? thanks x

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    1. Truly Scrumptious9 February 2014 at 15:08

      Hi Caitlin, I actually used kebab sticks with this one as who really has dowels living around? Hope you enjoyed making it!

      Delete
  5. Jennifer26 August 2013 at 23:49

    This looks great! Thanks for sharing how you did it - I've been looking for straightforward directions for a pirate ship cake. Did you start with a 9x13 or larger size?

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    1. Truly Scrumptious9 February 2014 at 15:09

      I started with a 9x13, but the cake was really quite large!

      Delete
  6. Regina Zopf, MD, MPH27 August 2013 at 03:45

    This is great! Thank you, making one for my son...Appreciate you making it look so simple.

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  7. Abi Louise1 October 2013 at 13:19

    I am using this to make a pirate ship tonight!.. for my 21 year old friend.. :D

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    1. Truly Scrumptious9 February 2014 at 15:10

      Must put up recipe for margharita cupcakes soon- thanks for the reminder!

      Delete
  8. Karen Masters9 February 2014 at 13:50

    Thanks for posting the detailed instructions. I based my cake on this. Here's mine: http://madebyanastronomer.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/pirate-ship-cake.html

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  9. Stacey17 April 2014 at 16:33

    This cake looks fab!! Am thinking of making it for my 4 yr olds bday :)
    What are the windows mades from??

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    1. Truly Scrumptious17 April 2014 at 16:37

      White fondant that I left to dry overnight and painted with edible food paint. Easy peasy!

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  10. Anonymous24 June 2014 at 12:14

    Sorry! you answered my question in the above comment! Thanks!

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  11. Anonymous2 July 2014 at 14:14

    Hi, did you remove the wooden dowel or leave them in to hold the cake together?

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  12. Anonymous28 August 2015 at 18:28

    is the pirate ship shown above is it made with a 9x14 cake pan or larger cake pan was used? because looking at mine i think it will be smaller.

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  13. Unknown24 April 2017 at 21:57

    Do you have a recipe for the cake so it will be dense enough to stack but still yummy?

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  14. Truly Scrumptious24 April 2017 at 23:26

    Hi Matthew- I just used a standard vanilla cake recipe (4oz flour, 4oz butter, 4oz sugar, 2 eggs) scaled to suit whatever pan you are using. With the addition of the dowels to keep the pieces in place :)

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