Pirate Ship Birthday Cake

Pirate Ship Birthday Cake

Ingredients:
2 baked 9″ or 10″ round cakes
3 to 4 cups chocolate icing
Decorations:
Chocolate wafer sticks (such as Pepperidge Farm Pirouette Cookies)
Milk chocolate wafer rolls (Waffeletten cookies)
Several pieces of white or black paper
3 10″ wooden skewers
Malted milk balls
Rolo candies
Root beer barrels
Plastic pirate figures

1. Cut the cakes in half and layer them, rounded sides all facing the same direction, adding a thin coat of chocolate icing between the layers. 2. Trim the bottom curves of the cakes slightly to help them sit flat, then turn the cakes upright, as shown. (Tip: If necessary, wrap the cakes in plastic and chill in the freezer to make them firmer. Also, two drinking straws stuck through the four layers of cake will help keep them together.) 3. Cover with the chocolate icing, then create planking lines along the hull with a butter knife. Chill at least one hour to firm the icing. 4. Use dabs of icing to anchor wafer stick gunwales along the edge of the deck. 5. Press the wafer rolls into both sides of the ship for cannons. 6. Cut sails from the paper, then slip them onto the skewers and set the masts in place. 7. Add malted milk ball cannonballs, plenty of Rolo gold booty, and root beer barrels, then station a few pirates to keep watch. 8. For safety, place the candles in the cookie cannons, far from the paper sails. Also, make sure that the surface on which the cake rests is impervious to wax, as the burning candles will drip.

Adjustments: I made my cake in a Bundt pan because I didn’t have two round pans the same size. I added a Reeses PB cup at the top of the mast as a crows nest.
I added Jute for the rope around the masts.
For the front bow part (the pole) I widdled a Pirouette cookie to a point and put it on a skewer and poked it in so it stuck out the front.
For the gold, I got rollo wrappers and wrapped them around Hershey bar squares.
For the cannons I used tootsie rolls (the big fat ones) and shoved a candle in the middle of them.
Since the bundt cake had a hole in it, it made the boat a “U” shape, so there was a big pit in the middle of the cake. I just covered it over with a Hershey bar.