If there is a pirate party for your preschooler on the horizon, try your hand at making this amazing homemade pirate ship birthday cake. It is guaranteed to be the biggest hit of the party!
The original idea came from www.parenting.com, but I changed the design to better accommodate the needs of our party. The original cake was much too small for the number of people I had, so I doubled the size of the cake. I also adjusted some of the decorations and added others. Keep these changes in mind when viewing the directions/diagrams in the parenting.com link above.
Here is what you will need:
Ingredients for Pirate Ship
- 2 boxes cake mix (I used yellow cake mix, but you can do whatever you like. Chocolate cake mix might actually be easier when it comes to frosting the cake as the colors will be similar so if you get some crumbs in the icing it won’t show as much!)
- 2 cans dark chocolate icing
- 1 can yellow buttercream icing
- 6 white life saver mints
- Yellow regular-sized M&M’s
- Pretzel snaps
- Blue decorating sugar
Ingredients for Treasure Chest
- Graham crackers
- Mini M&M’s
- The remaining vanilla frosting
- Toothpick
Other things you’ll need:
- Bread knife
- Black and white construction paper
- Wooden skewers (or really long straws)
- Cardboard or a really large cake platter/serving tray
- Pirate figures (optional)
Bake the cakes in rectangular pans (one pan per box of cake mix) according to directions on box.
Allow cakes to cool. HINT: Try wrapping the cakes and freezing them overnight. This will make trimming and frosting them easier.
Trim top of one cake so that it is level. Place it on your cardboard or serving platter. Carefully place wax paper all around the base of the cake covering your cardboard or cake platter (to catch crumbs as you trim cake).
Spread a thin layer of chocolate frosting on the top of the cut cake. Lay the second cake on top of the first. Trim the cakes into the shape of a pirate ship. (See template HERE... but keep in mind I changed the recipe to use two boxes of cake mix so my ship/cake is double the size of the original recipe) www.parenting.com/article/how-to-make-a-pirate-ship-cake
To make the deck of the ship carve a 1” to 1.5” rectangle (using a bread knife) out of the top layer of the ship. The rectangle should be slightly off-center toward the back end of the ship. See picture of finished cake.
Spread chocolate frosting along the sides and top of cake (avoiding the deck area as that will be a different color). HINT: The key is to use a LOT of frosting. If you start out with more and then slowly and carefully spread it out, you won’t get as many crumbs mixing into the frosting! Use the tines of a fork to make the wavy lines on the ship.
Spread vanilla buttercream frosting onto the deck area, being careful not to mix it with the chocolate on the ship. Again, use LOTS of frosting and spread slowly and gently to avoid crumbs.
Decorate your ship. Place yellow regular-sized M&Ms along both sides of the bow of the ship. Place three white life-saver mints along both sides of the ship underneath the deck area. Trim the bottoms off a handful of pretzel snaps (which you can buy at the local Olympia Fred Meyers) and stick them into the top of the ship to make the railings along the front and back. You can also use whole pretzel snaps to make windows at the back of the ship by gently pressing the pretzel into the side of the cake (see picture).
Decorate the deck of the ship with plastic pirate figures. HINT: If your plastic pirate keeps falling over in the frosting, use a toothpick to secure him more firmly. (Try the Playmobile pirate sets which run as low as $4.99. They are available at the local Olympia ToysRUs.)
Make the treasure chest to set on the deck of the ship. Carefully break graham crackers apart along the dotted lines (if you are using graham crackers without lines, gently saw the crackers apart with a serrated knife). Make a box shape by placing one rectangle on the bottom and additional rectangles along the front and back. You will have to cut two of your rectangles shorter to fit along the ends of the box. Use a small amount of vanilla frosting to secure the graham crackers together. You should end up with a rectangular box shape. Fill the box with mini M&M’s. Use one more rectangular piece to make the top of the treasure chest. Use frosting to secure the “lid” piece to the back of treasure chest. Use a toothpick to hold the lid in the open position. Allow frosting to dry. Then gently place the treasure chest onto the deck of the ship.
Construct your sails. Using black construction paper, (or whatever color you choose) cut out two sail shapes. Draw or place a white skull shape on the front sail (I used a skull cutout from a leftover invitation to match our party theme) Tape two wooden skewers together to make them the necessary length for your sails. Poke the skewer through the top and bottom of the sail. HINT: The skewer should be on the backside of the sail when you are finished. Gently push the skewers into the cake where you want the sails to be.
Remove the wax paper from around the base of your ship if you haven’t already done so. Place a thin layer of frosting around the ship in a wavy design. Sprinkle blue decorating sugar on the frosting to simulate water. Be careful not to get too many of the blue sprinkles on the chocolate frosting of the cake!
Enjoy! But beware, this cake is almost too awesome to eat!
Keep watching this column for more fun pirate-themed birthday party ideas.
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