This is the first cake I’ve done that someone has actually asked me to do for someone else, from them.

I mean, lots of people have gone all, “Oh wow. Could make such-and-such for me?” But when it comes to the crunch, most people don’t really want to pay for it. Most people don’t understand the days of work behind a cake. But this for friend-turned-housemate, I was happy to make one for free of charge, despite the offer of money being there. This one was gonna be lots of fun.

This one was for her dad. She told me he has somewhat of a Peter Pan complex. So we thought this sunken pirate ship cake would be lots of fun as far as reliving ones childhood goes.

This was my very first attempt at REAL cake carving. I mean, I have carved cakes before. But nothing so complicated as to completely deviate from a basic cake shape. It wasn’t perfect, as I couldn’t find the right sized tin I needed. But the basic shape was there.

The ‘wood’, or brown fondant, was all home made marshmallow fondant. The rest was store bought rolled fondant as dictated by time constraints. It never tastes as good (though markedly better than the Wilton stuff, or so I’m told!), so it was restricted to use on the things that were least likely to be eaten.

The railing was by far the hardest bit. Just trying to make those damn things not fall!

I don’t like cakes with “fronts”, however, so I endeavoured to make the back of the ship as detailed as the front.

The beauty with this cake was, because it was a shipwreck, it didn’t have to be perfect. So when my black colouring leaked out the back, I didn’t have to panic. Silly silly hot weather.

Rusty barrel! Y’know, in case you didn’t work that one out all by yourself. I would have loved to have added more detail and colour to the sandy bottom. But at 3am with work the next morning I figured sleep was more important.

Of course, no self-respecting sunken pirate ship is complete without a treasure-stealing octopus.

Is it still an aerial view if it’s under water?

Ahoy! Here be t’ captain, ready t’ defend his ship from t’ deadly octopus.

… apparently, he is a giant who doesn’t require oxygen to breathe.

Inside is a vanilla madeira cake, layered and crumb coated with cream. Originally, it was supposed to have a chocolate ganache between it and the fondant, but hey, even expensive chocolate seizes. Who’d have think it?

Yeah. That was disappointing.