Pirate Ship/ Treasure Chest cake - can anyone give me instructions?

[LetThemEatCake]

I've got a Pirate Ship guide from an Australian Women's Weekly cake book but it looks a wee bit tricky and require black icing which I've been told is near-impossible to achieve - can anyone help with instructions for a foolproof pirate ship or treasure chest? I don't have a lot of time to labour over something, sadly (new baby!) so easy yet impressive would be great!!

TIA

I did one for DS's birthday it was a bit like this but open with treasure spilling out.

I used choc butter icing for the wood and roll-out yellow icing for the metal trim on the edges of the chest, the lock etc. Buy choc coins, brightly wrapped sweets, play beads etc and have them spilling out of the slightly open lid. Sprinkle demerara sugar on the cake board for sand.

It looked really effective

You could make an oval cake (quite a deep one) and ice the top and stick sweets etc on it to make people / steering wheel etc. Stick chocolate fingers into the side for cannons and silver balls for decoration. Stick two kebab skewers with "flags" on into the top and there you have it. Put on a blue tray with sherbet for sand like a desert island and blue sweets or icing as the sea. Make sure to lay gold coins everywhere too.

You could also use an oblong cake tin for a tresasure chest cake , cut it in half, wedge open with skewers and fill with sweets and just do brown icing / chocolate cake with piped icing on top for the 'straps'.

Kinda like this for the treasure chest.

I made a pirate ship one as described above but with a pirate ship tin rather than oval but it'd work fine.

Go to tescos (that's right the root of all evil).
Find the cake aisle.
Find the treasure chest cake.
Go to the sweet aisle.
Buy extra chocolate coins in gold foil wrappers and haribo jelly rings.

Put sweets on tesco cake, watch piratey hyperactive kids eat sugary cake and sweets, send them home. Job done.

Thus ends my excerpt from my own manual - slummy mummy parenting.

LOL AboardtheAxiom

I like your style but for reasons of personal history, it is a given that I must slave over my children's birthdays cakes. No shortcuts allowed.

I would never forgive myself.

How easy is it to "prop" sections of cake up with skewers? this is one of the things that makes me feel nervous about the AWW guide I have...

Wouldn't a skewer just go through sponge?? Sorry I am just pondering - I know nothing of cake baking, only cake eating.

I'm sure whatever you do it will be great and your dc will eat it with great enthusiasm. My mum always made us birthday cakes and I used to love them.

I didn't use skewers to prop the cake lid open, I think I might have just wedged some more cake in there, or some of the "treasure".

It was only propped up a bit, just so some gold beads and choc coins could be stuck out artfully draped from the chest, and then more coins on the board

Black icing is easy but you need gel or powder pigments - get them from a specialist cake suppliers shop.

I did a treasure chest once... To prop the lid I cut the edge of the "hinge" side at an angle and then used tooth picks at 45degrees to stop it sliding off. The off cut was turned and put on the inside of the lid to take the weight - and further proped by lots of sweets. Use lots of icing to cover the joins.

You could, of course, try this

(I suppose I ought to add a warning that it's not for the delicate...)

SGB!

OINK!

I would log on here or here and buy one.

cadburys chocolate fingers (milk or dark) work a treat as logs on pirate ship. use them around the ship or as deck

I made a treasure chest cake this weekend, inspired by Norbert, and although it didn't look nearly as good as the photos here, it was at least recognisable. I used chocolate buttercream icing (which should have been much darker brown), Galaxy Ripples cut in half as iron bands over the "lid" and Rolos as studs.
Made cake using Nigella's buttermilk birthday cake recipe which as she said was robust and easy to carve into shape.

thanks everyone - party was a huge success and cake looked pretty good too :-)

here it is

No idea what it tasted like since I am a cake free zone (despite what my screen name implies!) - so dull - but everyone said it was yum.

I used this butter cake recipe

Congratulations, it does look wonderful!