Pirate Cake?

[Blu]

DS has taken unilateral action over his 3rd birthday and been busy inviting everyone to his 'Pirate Birthday Party'.
For the last two years I have humiliated myself attemting theme cakes, now I need urgent MN help. HOW am I going to create a Pirate Cake? Can I use ready-made black icing (does it exist) as the background to a skull and crossbones flag, or is that too tasteless and scary? How could I make, say, a treasure map cake...or indeed a pirate ship? OR, S Londoners, can i get one made at reasonable cost?

I made a Treasure Island cake last year. Round madeira cake filled with butter icing, topped with sand coloured fondant icing, blue/white streaky butter icing around the base of cake for sea with black coloured rocks (v. popular with the boys). Used Playmobil figures and a tree on top and made a brown fondant treasure chest which was filled with those small silver sugar decorating balls for treasure (v. popular with girls)!

Friend had a round cake decorated as a pirate face with a swathe of coloured icing for scarf/hat , black icing patch on eye and stubble ! Guess you could use sweets, like liquorice, for features.

Firstly, readymade black icing does exist (don't try and make it yourself, it goes a foul shade of grey/purple). Mine came in a pack with yellow, red & green too made by Supercook, the people who do 'writing icing'.

I'll just check my idiot's guide to birthday cakes for some ideas. Back in a mo.

Liz's idea sounds good.

My 30 minutes kids' cake book (ha, last one took 5 hours !) uses chocolate fingers & choc butter icing to cover loaf shaped cakes which have been trimmed to look 'boat shaped'. Uses wodden skewers & paper for sails, Playmobil people as pirates & shredded blue tissue paper for the sea.

Good luck !

Ooooh, thank you! I'm getting quite enthusiastic! Now i want to make ship AND treasure map. Lizs, where did you get a fondant treasure chest? (or did you make it?)

Blu
Do any of these help?

sainsburys

disneyrecipie

eyewateringly expensive

I made it (Swiss aren't into cake decorating in the same way so had to make the all the fondant icing too!) Just a oblong block of brown icing which I "moulded" to suggest a half open lid and pressed the sugar balls into. You could probably use chocolate biscuits to construct one instead

Hi Blu. I did a treasure map one in December for my ds (5). I did the same kind of thing as LizS and the boys loved it. I'm sending you moral support, as I found it quite stressful, but enjoyable too. Believe me, if I can do it, it can't be hard! Good luck!

THANK YOU all. Soapbox; yes, it's eyewateringly expensive, but one I found on the net was £145! You clever cake-makers could make a fortune! I think i am going to have a try at a treasure map (the idea of freezing cake before carving it on the disney sute was good, Soapbox), AND maybe some 'eye-patch' individual buns! And the Sainsbury's treasure chest cake for the extra tea party he will have to have!

And I'm going to bury hidden 'treasure' (shiny new coins scrubbed, disinfected and wrapped in foil?) all round the cake so each child gets some in their slice.