How to make a Pirate's Treasure Chest Cake

Our friends have a little boy who is mad on pirates. Even though he likes to run around with a cutlass, it all seems rather innocent and reminds me of childhood days of yore. So I made him a pirate's treasure chest cake for his birthday. He would have had a pirate ship cake if he hadn't already been baked one by yours truly for his Christmas present:



I used a cake mix consisting of the weight of eight eggs combined with the same weight in butter, sugar and two thirds of the egg weight in flour with the other third in cocoa powder. The batter was baked on three large baking trays for about 15-20 mins at 180o/gas4. After the cakes cooled I cut each into two and trimmed them to a uniform size, so they all stacked up nice and neat.



I then melted four giant sized bars of milk chocolate and sandwiched together the first four layers of cake, to create the base for my trunk. Then I used some of the trimmings to make a wedge at one side, to support the lid.



I put a good layer of chocolate onto the underside of the lid so it wouldn't break when it was sitting open on the base.



After it dried, I turned it over and trimmed it so it became curved on the top.



Then I made chocolate butter icing using a stick of butter, two of cupfuls of icing sugar and a cupful of cocoa powder and I covered the base in a layer of this and then used the rest to cover the top of the lid. I made sure it was all nice and tidy by putting a little of the icing round the open rim of the base and then running over the icing with a serrated knife for that lovely wood effect!

Using some pre-coloured icing I fashioned some decorations for my chest. I wanted it to look like 'Davey Jones's Locker'. Apparently in the "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie he has snakes for hair. So I made some snakes...



a dagger, two hinges, a skull and crossbones and a lock...



I sprinkled them with a bit of edible silver dust to make them look metallic...



...and draped the lid with a string of pearls and a sinister pendant - all the things that naughty pirates like!



I stuck them all onto the chest with some spare icing. Then I piped black icing along the sides to make 'planks' of wood.





The hardest part was attaching the lid. I painted more melted chocolate onto the supporting wedge and balanced the lid on that. The chocolate set quite quickly and there was no way it was going to move with all my skillful engineering!




Finally, I filled the chest with chocolate coins and brightly wrapped sweeties. I made them look as if they were tumbling out of the chest by sticking them into the icing.



And, shiver me timbers, Jim lad - here is the finished cake!






It weighed an absolute ton and I could have made it half the size but it really did look the business. There was one layer of the sponge left and I ate that myself whilst drinking a bottle of Rum and singing my favourite sea shanty, "Fifteen Men on a Dead Man's Chest", from Treasure Island. Oooh Aaarrrr!