Yo Ho, Yo Ho, A Pirate's Life for Me!

After making the Winnie the Pooh cake in May 2009, I was eager for the next birthday to try more daring designs for my 3D cakes. My father's birthday happened to be next. He loves boats, so I decided to make him a pirate ship cake! This was a structural challenge since ships are vertical. I started by baking two 13x9 cakes. I cut them length wise, filled, and stacked. Then I put several dowels through the cake to hold it together. I carved the bow and stern of the ship, and began the daring task of angling down to bottom of the ship. Fortunately, ships are in water, so I only had to angle it at the front, back, and a slight amount at the sides. It was precariously balanced and was probably the most unstable cake I have ever made! I put a coat of chocolate buttercream on the ship to help hold it together and placed it in the refrigerator to set.

Unfortunately, I was running low on funds and fondant. Fondant is quite expensive when bought pre-made by the 5lb bucket. I had paid around $35 retail for the bucket of fondant for the Winnie the Pooh cake. My only choice was to use the leftovers on important areas and use buttercream icing on the rest. I piped the wooden boards on the ship's side and deck using the basket tip. I used life savors for portholes in the side and malt balls for cannon balls. The masts were made from plastic supports and straws that I covered in the only remaining fondant that I had. It was very difficult to cover the plastic, and the fondant was either lumpy or didn't stick. The sails were made from a thin sheet of fondant that I had rolled and let dry on a wine bottle. Sadly, most of the sails broke as I was putting them on and only four survived. The ropes were made from Twizzlers candy. I made some very thin blue icing and poured it around the ship, placed Swedish fish in the water, and quickly wrote a sloppy "Happy Birthday" on the base. The cake was finished off with candles in the bow, which we lit and proclaimed the ship was afire!

The concept with this cake was good, however structural difficulties and messy finishing because of lack of proper materials and time constraints led to a cake that didn't fulfill my vision. Despite this, my father was quite surprised and really liked it. And best of all, the cake tasted great!