Lego Pirate Ship Cake

Avast ye pirates! This landlubber has a cake to make... a pirate ship cake, that is! I was excited about the challenge of making a pirate ship cake, having not had the opportunity to make one before! I sketched up a design, which was a great backbone to build upon. It was really refreshing to have folks who know exactly what kind of cake they want (& I only found out later that the birthday boy's mom used to make cakes herself!). 

Lego Pirate Ship Cake

The sketch was for a much simpler cake, covered in ganache and accented with buttercream and pretzels. The birthday boy's parents had some really good suggestions to improve the design and we worked together make their vision come true! So, the final cake turned out to be way cooler than the initial concept!

Initial sketch

The pirate ship cake was made out of layers and layers of Devil's food cake, filled with vanilla Swiss meringue buttercream. I carved out the front and back sections until I was happy with the shape. It really helps to draw out a template on paper first and use that as a guide to carve the cake. 

Carved & crumb-coated cake

After the cake was crumb coated and chilled, I covered the whole thing in yummy chocolate brown fondant. It was easier to do the "wrap and lid" method instead of covering the whole cake with one giant rolled out piece of fondant. This means that I rolled out two long pieces and covered the sides of the cake, and then cut out a piece to cover the top part of the cake. And since the cake was covered with "wooden planks" I didn't have to hide the seams as it worked with the design. I freehand-indented the planks design onto the fondant using a veiner tool. 

The little portholes and details on the cake

What really makes this cake, though, are all the details! I added portholes on the sides, some windows, a door in the middle of the ship and two ladders going up to the main deck with a steering wheel on it (I put the ladders on at the venue). The ship was bordered with little fondant posts and railing as well. 

To make it a real pirate ship, we had to have the Jolly Roger flag in there somewhere! I figured that fondant flags would be too heavy to support, so I crafted the flags out of paper. I couldn't find white and red striped paper, so I made my own stripes, using double sided tape, spaced evenly apart on red craft paper! I printed out an image of the skull and crossbones, cut it out and stuck it onto black craft paper for the Jolly Roger flag. For the masts on the ship, I used two giant chopsticks, poked those into the cake, and then threaded the flags onto them. 

To make the cake more interesting, I put the whole thing on a textured blue buttercream-covered cake board, with white buttercream waves splashing up the sides of the ship. I also added a small island with a tall fondant palm tree and fondant treasure box spilling out all that golden treasure. 

spot the shark

The entire island and the tree are actually made out of one piece of fondant, so that the island can be the base to support the tree. The palm tree has a wooden chopstick running through its trunk to hold it up. I also "built" the leaves separately from the tree trunk, cutting out the leaves from green fondant, sticking them together with a little bit of water and then allowing it to dry on an upside down bowl before attaching it them on top of the tree trunk using royal icing. 

Treasure Island

The island is covered with crushed Digestive biscuits for sand. I really wanted to try and write the birthday boy's name in the sand, but biscuit sand doesn't behave like regular sand, so I ended up just using fondant for his name. 

hard to write in "biscuit" sand

barely visible "D"

Since it's suppose to be a Lego Pirate ship cake, and not just any pirate ship cake, the birthday boy supplied his own favourite Lego Pirate toys to top the cake, which I placed on at the venue. I especially love the skeleton Lego figurine, which was perfect to go on the island. The poor guy was marooned there 'til he was nothing but bones!

the Lego pirate crew

Marooned with all the treasure!

Donovan's 5th birthday celebration was held at the perfect venue: Port of Lost Wonder in Sentosa! The place is a big waterpark, with a huge pirate ship as the main water play structure. The special area for the birthday celebration had nice touches of pirate too, with props like wooden barrels, empty glass bottles and even a pirate puppet! I was concerned, though, that the cake wasn't going to hold up for very long, since it's a fondant cake in an outdoor venue. Fondant and the heat and humidity of the tropics do not go well together!! 

chilling out in the chiller

don't forget the Bowsprit!

Luckily, the place had a large chiller to keep the cake in until it was time for cake cutting, so there were no melting issues. But the cake was nice and shiny from all the condensation on it though!! 

Lego Pirate Ship Cake

back of the cake!

Land Ho!

I do love how the cake turned out! And it was so nice to be able to see Donovan's big smile when he saw his cake! He was just so excited to be celebrating his big day! Happy 5th Birthday, Donovan! 

Arrrrrrrr, Matey! The smiling swashbuckler

Happy 5th Birthday, Donovan!

Lovely family shot!