Newbie Needs Help With Making Pirate Ship Cake. Pretty Please??

Decorating By Shaggy726 Updated 9 Aug 2013 , 4:21pm by Shaggy726

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Shaggy726 Posted 4 Aug 2013 , 11:00am
post #1 of 6
HI everyone!  icon_biggrin.gif  I have tried to read as much as I can here and finally decided to join on up and pick some very creative brains, if you don't mind.  I am making my son's 4th B'day cake this year and he requested the Bucky Pirate Ship from Jake and The Neverland Pirates.  I would like to do this and place it on a sheet cake so that I can also do Jake out of sugar paper and don't want the ship to be monstrous!.
 I have a few questions, please bare with me:  
 
How many cakes do I need to make for the ship?  I looked around and saw that some people used round cakes for it, do you think that is workable?  
 
Sheet Cake: Should I just do a single layer or double? I would like to cover it in white fondant, then use either melted chocolate (blue) to make the water to put the ship on, or  maybe blue gel ??  (I am so indecisive right now).  On the other part I want to put Jake w/ a small treasure map and the birthday info.  
 
Filling: I was thinking for the sheet cake of doing half a vegan strawberry whipped cream, no clue on the other half.  The Pirate Ship: Vegan chocolate cake (still looking for the right recipe, didn't like the last one I used) with a chocolate or something other filling.
 
My level of experience?? Yeah, this is my first 3D cake as well as working with fondant.  I am however pretty artistic and have a pretty steady hand, so I know that I can do this. I think I am over thinking a lot of it at this point. Also, how far in advance can I make just the cakes? I know I can freeze them so that shaping the ship is a bit easier.  TIA!
5 replies
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melanie-1221 Posted 4 Aug 2013 , 11:34am
post #2 of 6

The # of cakes you will need for the ship depends on how tall you would like it to be.  I always determine how many layers I need to get to the height of the object I'm making and then add 1 extra to allow for carving and detail.

Again, depending on the length ship you want to make you could use round cakes, I normally use one of my smaller sheet cake pans and cut that cake in 1/2 and stack when I do a pirate ship.

For your sheet cake I would probably do a single filled layer if you don't need a ton of servings.

You are correct, chill or freeze your cake before carving and just shave off the cake, you can aways shave off more, you cannot put it back on ( like a haircut :) 

You can do it! thumbs_up.gif

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Shaggy726 Posted 5 Aug 2013 , 10:13am
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Thank you for responding! I'm thinking the pirate ship might be 5 layers high (carved, of course). Maybe doing a smaller sheet cake pan would be a better idea. And you are right on the sheet cake layers. One should do it since I will have the pirate ship as well.  Also, trying to figure out the best vegan chocolate cake recipe that would work for this. I have gone through the recipes here (omg...I was drooling!), but not sure which would hold up to the stacking and carving.

this site is awesome and holy moly are you all talented!!

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Shaggy726 Posted 7 Aug 2013 , 10:54pm
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I have gone through a lot of the vegan recipes for chocolate cake, but I am wondering which one is a favorite and would stand up to stacking?  Any help is appreciated

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BatterUpCake Posted 7 Aug 2013 , 11:57pm
post #5 of 6

I always search these sites for 5 star ratings  http://www.instructables.com/id/The-BEST-chococlate-cake-ever...that-happens-to-be/

 

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/vegan-chocolate-cake/

 

Have you tried either of these?

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Shaggy726 Posted 9 Aug 2013 , 4:21pm
post #6 of 6

No, I haven't. I am going to do a test cake today, so I will try them out! Thanks!!!  Turns out my neighbor used to do cakes so I now have physical help with it. 

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