PIRATE CAKE

 

The Pirate Birthday cake for my fabulous son 11 yrs

 

 

Simple moist double chocolate sponge cake, painted with some vanilla icing to help stick the regal fondant icing.

 

This is the very first time I have actually regal iced a cake and it came out prefect, I have learnt to make sure I have double the regal icing I need and not to roll it too thin, as I have done so in the past, and then had to start all over again as the icing breaks and falls off the sides of the cake, and I then get great cake stress and have a perfectionist strop and take the easy route out by making some vanilla butter icing and then ice the cake with that, however I have now leaned how easy this was, just by paying attention and following a better method, in fact it is harder to butter ice a sponge cake as the crumbs of the cake always move and stick to the icing, which in turn then leads me to adding touch up patch up areas, so in short I have been making icing a cake a harder more stressful experience just because I did not think I could regal ice a cake!  So pleased with myself.

 

The top tier, I sat in the front room with a 2kg of white regal icing and a picture of a skull, and just played around, I admit to crushing the made skull three times!  I still think the first one I made was the best, but because of my perfectionist strop I re-molded and this is the finished skull.  I brought some edible paints and some gold leaf for the decoration and for the middle tier a basic double chocolate sponge, regal iced with red regal icing strips.

For the bottom tier, lots of regal icing which I treat like playdo and just play, my fabulous son asked for scenes from his favourite movies Dead Mans Chest and On Stranger Tides, therefore he decided he wanted a pirate ship, the kracken, pirate waves, a treasure map, NO MERMAIDS as he really does not like them and then a pirate skull to finish off the cake.

 



 

Final touches make all the difference so I raided Oscar's treasure chest and used the ruby's and emeralds and diamonds with gold and silver pirate coins around the base.

Ingredients

For a 6" deep tin (top tier)
6oz room temp butter or stork
6oz caster sugar
3 eggs
4oz self raising flour
2oz green & blacks cocoa powder

For a 8" deep tin (base)
12oz room temp butter or stork
12oz caster sugar
6 eggs
9oz self raising flour
3oz green & blacks cocoa powder

Sugar syrup (optional)
3 tbsp sugar
8 tbsp boiling water (mix together)

Regal Icing for this cake
4kg white regal icing
250g brown icing
250g red icing
750g blue icing
250g purple/blue icing

Edible paints
I like to keep in stock red, yellow, brown, black, white, blue and gold.  I also keep some edible glue and glitters in the cupboard too.

To make the wonderful cake batter, beat the butter/stork with and sugar until light and pale in colour, then on a slower beat add the eggs one at a time, sometimes I like to add a tbsp of the flour and cocoa mix after each egg to stop any hint of curdling, then add the remaining flour and cocoa mix and mix gently till all incorporated.

Grease and line your tin completely, pour in the batter and place in a pre-heated oven 200 degrees for approx 1 hr for the  8" tin or until springy to touch and approx 30-40mins for the 6" tin.  I sometimes find I need to put a foil top on the 8" cake as the top starts to catch after 40 minutes.

To see if my cake is cooked, I use the skewer method and place my wooden skewer into the centre of the cake, when it comes out clear I know my cake is cooked, I take the cakes out of the oven and then I like to drizzle the sugar syrup over my cakes to add a bit of moisture back, if the cake is flavoured with lemon or vanilla I would add that flavour also to the sugar syrup.  I then wrap the warm cake tin in clingfilm to hold all the moisture in and leave to cool.   Once cooled turn out and trim the top to make it level, turn upside down and paint with some warm jam or butter icing to help the regal icing stick.

For the icing, I do cheat and I buy the regal icing already made in all the colours I need and I keep in stock edible paint, glitter and gold leaf for decorating.

To regal ice the cake I take more than I think I need and mix all the blocks together, mix 2 x 1kg blocks of white icing for the 8" cake and roll out keeping nice and thick, this is the key to success!  I take the baking tin and lay the icing over the tin to measure if the icing is sheet is big enough, I do not guess this one.  Once the icing is the right size I just lay the centre point over the centre of the cake and let the icing drape down, gently I hug the icing to the base of the cake and then trim leaving a good 1inch diameter which I gently hug and tuck under the base of the cake.

For the red stripes, this was really very simple and quick, roll out the icing and trim 8 finger slices all the same length, place the first stripe on the cake and then have a pair of scissors handy and with each strip you place, you will just need to snip a diagonal off the top to fit the circle it is forming, even though no one will see this as it will be under the skull top tier.

To make the skull I sat in my front room one evening and had a couple of glasses of wine and played, until I had the skull I was happy with, just.  I then painted the skull with the edible paints and left to set overnight.

To make the pirate ship and the kracken I just played with the icing sugar and made the shapes I then  glued them to the waves of the cake.  There was lots of room for many more creatures, but my son did not want them.

I assembled the cake by placing the middle tier on top of the sea kracken scene, and then topped with the pirate skull, I then placed lots of jewelry, silver and gold coins around the base to finish off the cake.

In all a perfect Pirate Cake my son says xxx x x x  That is my Michelin star...