Pirate Ship Tutorial

So, one of my first posts was about how creating this cake really inspired me to keep moving forward, and challenging myself in the cake world. I realize that in this posts I showed you some of the steps that I took to make this cake, but it was not at all comprehensive. I have been asked a lot about how to make the pirate ship so I thought I would share a better tutorial with all of you. Please excuse all of the mess in the pictures I never thought that these would be out on the internet for all to see.

So, first you want to start off with carving the cake into something that resembles a pirate ship. I have foam core in between the cake layers for support. If you have not followed my blog since the beginning then you don;t know that this cake was to be driven 20 hours plus to Tulsa, OK for a big competition.

I then covered the entire cake in black fondant. Next, I layered fondant planks over top of the black fondant. I used the black fondant underneath so that when I cut away holes in the plank boards you would see the black fondant.

Since, this cake was being attacked by a krakin, I laid out where I wanted the krakin to attack so I could plan ahead where to place the tentacles.

I then airbrushed the entire cake brown.

Next, I went back over the entire cake with gel food coloring to add depth to the ship. You can see the difference between the side of the cake, and the top of the cake, which had not yet been painted.

I then added the rails using toothpicks for support. If you are going to make a ship that is being attacked make sure you leave some of the railing broken, and disheveled.

Here are the tentacles that I made to attack the ship.If you cannot tell I airbrushed them with purple, and green to add depth. Again, since I had preplanned where I wanted the tentacles to go I knew what shapes to make them.

The masts are wooden dowels that I covered in fondant. I drove the dowels through the foam core for support. I made the sails (not pictured) out of gumpaste and then let them dry for a long period of time before trying to attach them.

Here is the cake all ready to make the trip to OK.

After a long long trip we finally arrived, and I finished decorating the ship in the hotel room. (It had been a long trip, and I was tired so ignore my great outfit). I used blue royal icing to make the water, and them added white royal to make the foam from the krackin's arms. I attached the said to the masts with royal icing, and let them dry.

I added some other small details such as broken ropes, and broken ship planks to the water for effect. 

Here are some close-ups!

Here it is at the show with the awards!

So, I hope you enjoyed this little tutorial, and I hope it helps some people in the future when creating their great pirate ships!