Avast! My Completed Pirate Ship Cake

This Cake was quite labor intensive but well worth it in the end.. everyone loved it!.. including the Birthday Boy (my big bro).  The Pirate Ship is Gingerbread Cake covered in Ganache.  The base (sand & water) is a Golden Butter Cake with Buttercream icing.. with crushed graham crackers for the sand.  Everything is edible except the wooden masts and the pirates :)

Land ho!

Here is the base to my Pirate Ship Cake.. the ship will be beached ;)

Arrrr! (cont'd)

This Cake has been a little rough on me but I have issues with just about every Cake, and when all is said and done, they usually turn out fine.  So I'm going to be positive :)

Today I worked on a few more ship elements, such as the sails and painting the name of the ship on its side - in the ganache! (yes of course I named it - all the greatest Pirate Ships that have ever been had the coolest foul names!)  I also made a Jolly Roger flag to put on the ship.  This was my first attempt at using a printout for a template.. I printed an image of Jolly Roger, then traced it out on gumpaste.. sorta difficult but not bad for my first try.. it was a very small image which made it even harder!  I was pretty happy with it though.

Pirate Ship Cake Pan

I will be using a Pirate Ship Cake Pan to actually make the ship itself.  I decided to do a practice run since I've never used a pan like this before.  I just baked a plain chocolate cake for testing purposes.. the actual Birthday cake will be Gingerbread (the Birthday Boy loves Gingerbread :)

And here's how it turned out.. not bad.. later today I will be covering it in chocolate ganache (also for practice purposes since I have not yet worked with ganache - can't wait!)

A few hours later.. covered in Ganache.. which I've found to be some heavenly stuff :)

Arrrr!

This week I'm working on my brother's Birthday Cake.. he requested a Pirate Ship.. whoa!  Well this being my first, I had to do a lot of Pirate Ship research.  I'm attempting to make as many of the Cake elements edible as possible.  With this in mind, here are some gold coins I made out of fondant and painted with gold luster dust.  Beside them are some barrels that will be placed on the ship, which are actually root beer barrel candies that I painted some silver detailing on to give them a more authentic look.  The treasure chest/coins is not edible but the pearls I placed inside are.. just some pearlized sugar sprinkles.  I have much more to do on this Cake but it's coming along.  I hope to post some more pics in the next couple of days.. if not, then the finished Cake this weekend :)

Starry Night

This weekend I had a request from my step-daughter, Emily, to create Van Gogh's "Starry Night" out of cupcakes for her Birthday.  When I looked at the pic she had, my first thought was "no way can I do this."  However, I never like to say No and she convincingly said "I think you can do it!", so I told her I'd give it a shot.  

Well, here it is.. the cupcakes are Buttermilk Devils Food with Buttercream icing.  I have to say this was very difficult for me, and not my best "work of art", but it turned out ok.  This sorta thing is way too abstract for my type A brain!  The Birthday girl seemed happy with it so I guess that's all that matters :)

More Monkeys

Here are pics of the cupcake cake (monkey face) and smash cake I did this weekend.  I was pretty happy with them overall.. 

The smash cake is vanilla with banana custard filling and banana buttercream icing

 

The monkey face is chocolate & vanilla cupcakes covered in chocolate buttercream

The extra cupcakes are chocolate & vanilla with vanilla buttercream

(and fondant bananas on top :)

 

Monkey Theme Cupcake Wraps

Here are the cupcake wraps I made.. aren't they cute?  I just love making these!

Monkey Cake/Cupcakes

This week I'm working on a monkey themed 1st Birthday Cake/Cupcakes for my husband's grandson, Max.  I will be putting together a big monkey face made out of cupcakes (a "cupcake cake" - which will be my first) as well as a smash cake for the Birthday boy.  I'm excited about doing my first cupcake cake.. hope it turns out well.  

I wasn't sure what to do for the smash cake (since Max's Mom told me to run with it!) but then I started playing around with my brown fondant and ended up making my first ever fondant figure - a monkey!  I was pleased with how it turned out, being my first and all (lots of firsts with this cake :)  Here's a pic of the smash cake topper I made.  I will post pics of the completed Cake/Cupcakes this weekend.