Stretching Our Limits: How to Make a Pirate Ship Cake

Or maybe I should call this post "How NOT to Make a Pirate Ship Cake: Don't Repeat My Mistakes." This cake was truly a labor of love, as in I must truly love the little boy who wanted the cake because I wouldn't have gone through that for just anybody.

Step 1: Have a little boy who becomes obsessed with all things pirate at the age of 4. Isn't he adorable?

Step 2: Find a pirate ship to give you inspiration. The Little People Mayflower is close enough to a pirate ship, right?

Step 3: Bake 2 chocolate cakes. Chocolate because that's what your little boy asked for, and two because you didn't have time (or maybe you just didn't have energy) to make a practice cake last week (besides, who would have eaten that practice cake? You don't live in the Village anymore, so you don't have a whole slew of people who you can force to eat you cake - I'm looking at you, Renning!) and you are sure that you are going to mess up the first cake, so you better have a back-up, just in case.

Step 4: Wrap the cakes up really well in plastic wrap and freeze for 2 hours. Or maybe you should freeze them for 4 hours, but you don't have time for that! You have to make the cake before the party guests arrive.

Step 5: Make your favorite chocolate frosting. It comes from the recipe your amazing sister-in-law makes with her delicious peanut butter fingers. Mmmmm!

Step 6: Cut the cake in half, width-wise, and stack one on top of the other. This should give the ship the height you need to be able to carve it. Or maybe not.

Step 7: Cut off a long slice along the side and use that to build more height for the aft deck and the poop deck. And because you're a little immature, laugh at the fact that you are making a poop deck.

Step 8: Cut off the edges of one end to make your prow pointy. You want your ship to know which direction it is supposed to be selling, right? Oh, and pile more of the slice from step 7 onto the poop deck to make it taller than the aft deck.

Step 9: Take the whole thing apart so you can glue it together with your amazing chocolate frosting.

Step 10: Start spreading your amazing chocolate frosting. Oops, your frosting is WAY too thick. Your amazing frosting is perfect for peanut butter fingers, but not so much for gluing pirate ships together. You better thin it out a little with some milk. There, much better!

Step 11: Reassemble the cake, spreading your amazing, thinned-out frosting between each layer with a final coat over the whole thing. Oops, your decks tried to slide off while you were frosting the whole thing. You better put some sort of support to make sure they don't fall off. How about chopsticks?

Step 12: What in the world are you going to do with that other cake?! You didn't think you would make it this far in the cake-carving process. You don't want to waste that cake. You better make a sea for the ship to sail on!

Step 13: Cut the cake in half, height-wise. You can't really explain this step with words, so just look at the picture.

Step 14: Flip the top half over so you have a somewhat level cake. You only sail in steady waters; no stormy seas for you! But where did those big bubbles inside your cake come from?

Step 15: Make your good buttercream frosting. It's not as amazing as your amazing chocolate frosting, but it is still pretty good!

Step 16: Tint it blue. You are thinking about Pirates of the Caribbean during this whole thing, and you know that the waters around the Caribbean are a crystal clear turquoise (at least that's what Hollywood tells you).

Step 17: Frost your sea. You know, that sea would look a lot better if you had made a white cake instead of a chocolate cake in the very beginning. Try thinking about these things in the future, okay?

Step 18: Transfer your pirate ship to your sea. Then watch the whole ship fall apart. Don't take pictures of this part because you are in the other room stomping around in frustration and (admit it!) crying just a little.

Step 19: Come back to find that your wonderful, amazing, brilliant, awesome, magnificent, fantastic, remarkable, tremendous, superb husband has fixed the ship! Aren't you so glad that you married him? He used craft sticks (or popsicle sticks, depending on your point of view) to make the back outline of the rear deck, then just stuffed the cake inside the fence of sticks. Isn't he the smartest man alive?

Step 20: Hide the craft sticks by covering them with your amazing chocolate frosting. Now it looks like nothing happened! Your husband is so smart.

Step 21: Sprinkle blue sugar sprinkles all over the sea. Your sea is going to be Fab-u-lous (with a capital F)!

Step 22: Pile all the scraps of cake from your carving process into a little pile to make an island. You didn't eat those scraps, did you? No, you would never eat the scraps of cake that you're working with; that doesn't sound like you at all.

Step 23: Frost the island with tan frosting. You saved some of your white buttercream frosting from step 15 and tinted it tan, didn't you? Of course you did. You were really thinking ahead this time!

Step 24: Push Rolos into one side of the ship to represent cannons. You didn't push too hard, though; you don't want your ship to start leaning, right?

Step 25: Prepare the other cannons to hold candles. Use a steak knife to dig holes through the chocolate top of the Rolos and push a candle into the caramel part.

Step 26: Push the candle cannons into the other side of the ship. For picture purposes, it would have worked a lot better to put the candle cannons on the first side of the ship. Where is your foresight from step 23?

Step 27: Place Pirrouline cookies as railings. There, that gives the ship a little more definition and it hides the craft sticks more!

Step 28: Stack Whoppers as cannonballs. Use your amazing chocolate frosting to glue them together so they don't roll around the ship during hurricanes (if only the pirates of ye olde dayes had known about the astounding powers of your amazing chocolate frosting!).

Step 29: Prepare your pirates for the ship. Print out and color Jake, Izzy, Cubby, and Skully. Laminate them (or, since you don't own a laminating machine, simply cover them in packing tape; it's the poor man's laminating machine).

Step 30: Prepare the main sail. Color a white piece of scrapbook paper with blue strips. Measure where you want the mast to go through the sail. With an exacto knife, slice a X through the paper at each point you want the mast to go through the sail. Push a chopstick through each X. This technique makes it so the paper won't rip as you push the mast through it and the sails won't fall down (the holes won't be too big).

Step 31: Place the main sail and the pirates on your ship. Good thinking to put the pirates out front. But where is Skully? You taped him to the top of the mast? Good job, now it looks like he is flying!

Step 32: Sprinkle yellow sugar sprinkles on your island. If you are going to have a Fab-u-lous sea, you must have a Fab-u-lous island. And sprinkle on some star sprinkles. Now your island is covered in starfish (or as your children keep reminding you, they are sea stars, not starfish. Geez, Mom!).

Step 33: Create coconut trees. Cut tropical leaves out of green construction paper and glue them to the top of Pirrouline cookies with your amazing chocolate frosting. That chocolate frosting sure is useful stuff. You should have it around all the time!

Step 34: Push your trees into the island and add some coconuts. Those Whoppers can do double duty as cannonballs and coconuts? They're also very useful. Make sure they don't roll away by gluing them to the island with - you guessed it - your amazing chocolate frosting.

Step 35: Stand back and admire your work. Vow here and now you will never make a pirate ship again! At least not until your next son asks for one.