I had been thinking since quite some time as to which cake to make for my twins’ 4th birthday… I was trying to think of lots of options in terms of which cartoons they like, and then remembered the lovely Jake and the Neverland Pirates theme! They love Jake, Izzy, Captain Hook, Scully, Cubby,Sharky and Bones. The twins wanted me to make all the characters for them. Initially, being very ambitious, I had thought of making these figures myself, but in the end just ran out of time… so used small plastic toys.
The base of the cake is Coconut Pineapple cake, and the ship is made of Chocolate cake. Base is covered in Fresh Whipped Cream Icing, Ship (Chocolate cake) has been filled and covered with Chocolate Ganache.
I baked a chocolate cake, and then shaped it into a ship, cutting, carving, attaching where required. I filled this cake with thin chocolate ganache. I used a paper template to shape the basic cake, and then added on stairs etc. Finally I covered it all with thick Chocolate Ganache. You will find recipes for both types of Ganache in my post about Chocolate Ganache, the link is at the top.
To give a wooden look, I used Chocolate fondant cut into small strips. Then I ran a blunt knife over the fondant pieces to create a wooden effect.
For the railing, I rolled fondant into a long roll and cut small pieces out of it. The pieces should be of the same length. Then I attached cocktail sticks to each railing piece and left them to dry some 3-4 days before putting them to use. Once dry, I just kept on sticking the railing pieces on the ship, then rolled a long fondant roll to put on top of the railings. The drums, Scully, mast, small white lifebuoys are all made of fondant. I painted the mast with blue stripes, and left it on a rolled kitchen towel to dry in a curved shape.
On the base cake, I used light brown sugar to make sand. Palm trees, rocks, treasure chest and gold doubloons are made of fondant. The greenery is just whipped fresh cream frosting coloured green. To create the wavy effect on the water, I used blue tinted piping gel. Spread some blue piping gel over the whipped cream icing, then use a small spatula to create waves.
The wooden plank look was created by taking a rectangular white fondant, cutting it and scribing it with a blunt knife. Then finally painting over with brown paste colour diluted in very little vodka/lemon juice. Then it had to be left to dry for a week, so that it was set properly.
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