Pirate island kindof cake thing

[krabbiepatty]

Some of you may remember my tribulations with a pirate ship cake alst year (see threads passim under old nom de plume GhostofNatt). Would be most interested in and grateful for any thoughts, pics, links for a pirate treasure island type of thing. so far am thinking yellow round cake on blue iced board, thrilling.

Decorate it with Playmobil people then your dd/ds gets to keep them afterwards.
(My nephew had this with a knight cake with Playmobil jousting knights on it and I thought it seemed like a pretty nifty way to source appropriate decorations.)

Some pics here (scroll down), and you could use some lego or fisher price figures and palm trees to decorate it.

How about a treasure map? Flat rectangular cake, cover with ready roll icing bigger than the cake, roll over top and bottom to look like a scroll. Use food colourings and paint on an island - could use food pens for fine detail- Wiggly island outline with blue round for sea, the odd river, mountains, native huts, and an x marks the spot. could surround the cake with chocolate gold coins, or heap a pile on the side of the cakeboard. I've got a pic in a cakebook somewhere, but hopeless at the technology needed to upload. If you are interested I could ask DH later? Or, where are you? I love making cakes and if close would be happy to help.

Just seen your link Jackieno, they are lovely

Three's a book in ELC at the moment, about kids parties, and they have soem excellent ones in.
I was looking at it last night at a friends, think it is one of the books in 3 fior 2.

ooh ooh

I have a pic of a dinosaur island cake that would be most adaptable. Seems to remember the secret is to make a lumpy cake and use demerara sugar to look like sand. Would definitly add lego or Playmobil pirates and palm trees etc - you can make palm trees out of Matchmakers and rice paper, but there's a limit to how far a woman should go.

Of course, you could wilfully misinterpet and do a pirate island map cake that you could ice in a brownish cream and just decorate with write-on icing, big skull and crossbones and an X marking the spot...

[rummages]

dinosaur cake
not-too-hard looking pirate cake

Oh thank you all, am struggling not to feel inadequate as I examine these many works of art and push buggy with foot. PandaG, that is astonishingly kind thought but have to rustle something up by Saturday! Have now got many ideas (was feeling particulalrly stumped by palm trees - I rather see me sobbing over melting matchmakers at 3 in the morning, MrsBadger) and in worst case secnario can chuck a very large amount of playmobil on a round yellow cake... I am managing to ahve the fears in a big way especially as have almost no idea how many children actually coming due to usual failures to RSVP.. (moans off into the wilderness...)

Go with Panda's map suggestion, I would.

A little bit frightened by the painting bit of that one, mi. Everyone at DS2 nursery school is in the arts as far as I can see and have already lowered the tone with my woollies 10-for-99p invites...

Krabbiepatty, if you can face trying again I can recommend a piss-easy pirate ship. DH made one last year for DS and all it involves is a large square sponge cake, instructions on how to cut and assemble (really easy), and lots of butter cream icing. Oh, and a curly-wurly.

pirate islands look very good.

Pirate treasure chest is easy too, big rectangular cake, take slice off end and cut diagonally, then cut remaining cake in half and shave off some from the top to give a rounded lid.
The diagonal bits support the lid (invisibly).
Ice with choc butter cream and decorate with sliver balls and lines of white buttercream to make the straps they should have.
Fill with sweetie necklaces (from pick and mix displays) and gold coins.
I did this for ds2's party this year and it was my best cake ever.

Anchovy, clary, last year's disaster (culiminating in round cake being tarted up to resemble pirate ship) arsoe from effects of gravity on my attempts to assemble bits of cake in the small hours. Similar experience with a castle cake resulted in whole thing bristling dangerously with wooden skewers so am wary about whole notion of assemblage, but maybe I should consider treasure chest. Does the lid ever fall down, fall to bits, turn to crumbs before your eyes?

Or when you ice the shaved bits, do crumbs creep into the icing so you apply more icing, which gets too heavy causing cake to fall to pieces? I think i am too frightened to do treasure chest, now I ponder scope for disaster, unless I were to amek it out of artificial cake...

This pirate ship cake is honestly really easy. Think of your buttercream icing as mortar. Make lots of it (has any child ever said - Oh Mum, there was a nice cake at the party but there was just a bit too much butter-cream icing on it. Cut large square cake to relevant pieces and slap together. I know what you mean re crums, but it either didn't happen or didn't show.

Curly wurly as rigging, couple of flags and you are away. We put some playmobile pirates in the rigging and there you go. DH has the full admiration of every nanny in SW London.

That curly wurly rigging is tempting me terribly - ok, go on, how does it work?

If you fancy the map, painting is dead easy honest! You can also buy felt tip style edible pens - can get loads of colours in a cake shop but supercook do a pack of 4 that you can get in most big supermarkets. Do wobbly island outline, blue outside that and yellow inside. inverted triangles for mountains, blue lines for rivers, a few stick trees and a large x

Was a genuine offer, I'm in S yorks, free Friday afternoon!

PandaG, I'm v touched but I am in London! However am going to look at supermarket at these pens and if I can get all the gear I think I will try the map because it avoids the crumb icing thing and also assemblage disasters so am most grateful!

rofl krabbie

Glad to be of service, I helped a friend make a sccoby doo cake last week. Dilute food colourings with gin or vodka,, the alcohol will evaporate, or you can use water but go steady. Test the colour out on a scrap of ready roll to see how strong the colour is. I use paste colours rather than liquid as not so wet, but liquid will do if you don't add too much, and let one colour dry before you put another colour next to it. Hope you enjoy the party!

my treasure chest was amazingly solid, in fact transported to party venue in back of car IIRC.
It's hard to explain but the diagonal wedges hold the lid up really well and the whole thing was fine.
IKWYM though about collapsing cakes - last year's effort for DD was a doll in a skirt which I was very worried about.

BTW find nigella's buttermilk cake very good for this sort of thing, doesn't collapse into crumbs and can take the weight of icing. Tastes yummy too. It's in her domestic goddess book.