Here’s a quick little cake I did for a customer who was organising a pirate party for her son’s birthday. She got her son to choose the theme, and he responded with a ‘pirate and green’ theme. While she got to crafting all the decorations for the occasion, I set about making the cake to match.

Underneath it all was a tri-layered mudcake, covered in whipped chocolate ganache.

When discussing the options for the sand covering I offered the option of doing a biscuit layer for the sand rather than fondant. Not just for aesthetics but using a good ‘sand’ recipe makes for a lovelier taste, too. She opted for biscuit sand, so I began by covering the chocolate ganache with a thin layer of vanilla buttercream.

And then came the delicate process of adding all the sand! Fairly sure I got about as much sand on the bench as I did on the cake, but we got there in the end.

The rest of the cake followed a very specific brief on the fondant figures and their design.

My favourite part was getting to make the plaque on the front of the cake in the style of a treasure map.

The scroll was made from fondant, then painted with food colouring.