OPP: Pirate Ship Cake Tutorial

To make this cake you will need:

• 3 - 9"x13" cakes, any flavor is fine
• Brown frosting, I used 3 batches of Wilton Chocolate Buttercream Icing 
• 2 tubes of Wilton Black Decorating Icing, with separately sold tips
• 1 - 3' x 1/4" dowel rod
• scrap of white fabric
• small skull and cross bones iron on
• Pirate toppers (I found these toys to use)

I didn't have a cake plate big enough for my cake, but wanted it elevated.  So, I found a box top from a package my mom had sent that week.  I wrapped it in foil.

To make sure it was strong and stable and wouldn't sink, I put a couple of juice glasses underneath.

I took my three cakes and made sure they were more or less flat by cutting any excessive curvature off of the top.

I then stacked my cakes adding 1/2 - 3/4 C. of icing between each layer.

To carve out the cake I began by cutting a section of the top layer on one end...

...and flipping it around to stack on the other end.  I did this to create the high back end of the ship.  Because I would not be carving on this end, I wanted the curves to match up on the corners.

In order to create an elevated level on the front of my ship, I cut another section of my top layer and moved it forward.  I then cut off any excess making the two top layers on the back the same size.

Using a paper stencil I made, I cut the front of the ship.

I don't have a fancy icing piper (if that's what it's even called), so I relied on my handy dandy plastic sandwich bags.  I just filled it with icing, sealed the top and cut the tip off of one bottom corner.

I then opted to pipe the brown icing onto the entirety of the cake, excluding the tops of the front and back (I later filled these in with black just for some added depth/contrast).

Using my spatula knife continually dipped in warm water, I began smoothing out the piped icing.  By piping it on first and then smoothing, there is a lot less trouble with crumbs and tearing cake.  (And a lot less screaming and swearing!)

I then used some black decorating icing for some detail work.  Using the tip that is attached in this picture, I filled in the floors on the front and back sections of the boat.  I later used the top tip to "outline" the boat and add a few windows, and used the star tip for a few decorative medallion looking things.

I made a sail using a thin 3' dowel rod.  I cut it to some guesstimated lengths, glued the fabric on with a hot glue gun, ironed on the applique, and then glued all the rods together.

I added my pirate figures and some flags leftover from a cupcake topper package.