Coolest Pirate Ship Cake Design

I made this Pirate Ship Cake Design for my nephew’s 4th birthday. I used the fantastic ideas from this site to create this pirate ship cake, so thanks for the tips!

First I baked a 9×13 cake, an 8 inch round cake and an 8 inch square cake (a total of 2 cake mixes). I leveled and froze all 3 cakes to make them easier to frost later. I used the 9×13 as my base of the ship. I cut the round cake in half and stacked them to use for the front. I then carved them down a bit to get the pointed bow.

For the back, I cut 1/3 off of the square cake, put what was left down first on top of the 9×13, and then put the 1/3 piece on top of that to give it a raised deck. I had read on here that someone had a problem with collapsing decks, so I wrapped pieces of cake board in press and seal wrap and used those in between the back deck layers for support.

To give it just a little more stability, I stuck pieces Pepperidge Farm Pirouette cookies (that I had bought to make the cannons), cut to size, into the bottom layer of cake to hold up the first cake board. I frosted the whole thing with chocolate buttercream and put it in the fridge to harden up a bit.

For decorations I used pirate figures from the party store, tootsie rolls for the front railing and steering wheel, chocolate covered pretzels for the back railing, two Rolos stuck together with frosting with a Pirouette cookie resting on top for the cannon, whoppers for cannon balls and bamboo skewers to hold up the sails and jolly roger flag which were just done on the computer. I also used more Pirouette cookies for the cannons sticking out of the sides of the ship. I used some blue tinted buttercream to make an ocean, and gummy sharks.

The treasure chest was from my son’s Playmobil set and I filled it with Hershey kisses and M&Ms. I had a lot of fun creating this pirate ship!


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