Ahoy Mateys! If your little guy is begging for a pirate birthday party, I have got a fabulous tutorial telling you exactly how to make a pirate ship birthday cake!

Our Little Boy requested a pirate party for his birthday this spring.

Thank goodness he asked for something easy! His older brother wanted a Minecraft birthday party complete with a Ghast pinata, a Creeper cake, and an explosion. *sigh*

Whatever happened to Thomas the Tank Engine?

Let’s start with the pirate ship birthday cake. It looks pretty stinking good and was very easy to make. Most importantly our son loved it! This post contains affiliate links. Click here for my complete full disclosure policy.

How to Make a Pirate Ship Birthday Cake ~ Materials Needed

• one box cake mix
• 2 loaf pans
• nonstick cooling rack*
• 2 tubs of chocolate icing
• 1 tub of white icing
• blue food coloring
• black cookie icing*
• red Cookie Icing*
• Hershey’s Gold Nugget candies
• Tootsie Rolls
• plastic pirate figures*

How to Make a Pirate Ship Birthday Cake

Begin with a boxed cake mix baked into two loaf pans. Follow package instructions when baking.

After baking allow each cake to cool. I love using this nonstick cooling rack* for making sure that all of my cakes are completely cooled before decorating.

Next trim the rounded tops off each loaf then stack them on top of each other as shown. I know it might be hard but don’t eat the tops you just cut off! You are going to need these pieces in a few minutes.

Stack the two cake layers cut sides together. Don’t forget a layer of chocolate icing between each.

Cut a small “cabin” piece from the rounded top added to the back of the cake.

Use a serrated knife to cut small triangular pieces from the front of the ship. This will really help with the “appearance” of the pirate ship cake.

Use chocolate icing to ice the entire pirate ship cake. I carefully ran a small spoon along the surface of the cake to give the illusion of a wooden ship. Add more details with the black icing.

Tootsie rolls cut in half and glued to the sides with extra chocolate icing were the cannons. Check out the fire blasting out of the cannons (red icing)!

How to make a pirate ship cake appear to be floating in water is easy! Simply create an ocean with blue icing. I mixed white icing and blue food coloring together until I had “ocean” blue.

Golden wrapped chocolates are the treasure. Little Boy added the pirate man!

A pirate ship birthday cake must have treasure! We placed golden wrapped chocolates on the cake along with plastic pirate figures*.

The ship’s mast and sails were made from a large wooden skewer, construction paper, and Pirate printables found at Printabelle.

 

We had such a wonderful time celebrating our little guy’s birthday with a pirate birthday party! I hope you have been inspired with this simple tutorial for how to make a pirate ship cake!

Looking for more birthday party inspiration?

Click here to see all of our budget friendly Party Planning Tips and Tricks!

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Full Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links and/or is a sponsored post. I may receive compensation in the form of monetary compensation or product compensation in exchange for my review. I take pride in reviewing only products that fit my brand and will be beneficial to my readers. And while this post is sponsored or contains affiliate links, all the opinions are my own. Why do I do this? It will help me keep this DIY’ing Mama crafting for another day! For more on my disclosure policy click here.