When all else fails - make cake

We had an epic storm here this week and power was out. So no computers and by the time power came back on I had run out of child free time. Instead of writing, I therefore made cake.

A while back I offered to make a birthday cake for a friend's daughter's birthday party. It turned into a bit of an epic cakeathon and a lovely mermaid was the result. (You can see her on my facebook page)  But that turned into me saying yes to another cake for another birthday party, and thus, my weekend was full. Full of gold coins, bounty, pirates and general chocolate treasure!
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Given that loads of people ate it with happy munchiness, asked me to and it was relatively straight forward, I thought I'd share the step by step of it here. Hope you enjoy!

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​Step one - Make cake ;-)

(I made a banana date cake, less sugar because of the dates and bananas, and because it was for three year olds, I figure less sugar is good. Also. Icing). You could of course use a packet, or buy a sponge. All would be fine.

​Step two - Carve. 

I cut the rectangular cake in half, then cut a 45 degree slice out of the "lid", used the cut out part as a wedge and buttercreamed the whole together. If you use sponge, you might need to put toothpicks in to stabilize, but if you're using a heavier cake (like I did) you should be sweet without.

​Step three - Ice

You should really do a crumb coat here (a thinish layer of butter cream) to hold all the carved crumbs and make the next layer nice and neat. I was gong to do that, but then I figured, three year olds dont really need all that sugar. So I only did one layer. You can decide which you do - if you're using sponge you probably want to do the two cos sponge will give you more crumage ;-)
I used chocolate buttercream icing. And I made a darker chocolate icing which i layered on with a knife and planed into the other icing to give a woodish effect. Kinda.

​Step four - decorate (and ice some more)

I made the silver stud-work with white fondant which I brushed with silver edible chiffon (dust). Then I just pushed edible silver balls in for the studs. I also used white fondant brushed with the silver for the skull (you can see it in the photo at the top of the post). Then I just pushed a bunch of gold chocolate coins and Hersheys kisses into the icing. Made a small piece for the candles, and spread breadcrumbs (you could use biscuit crumbs) over a thin layer of buttercream to act as sand.

Next time I'll have to do a book cake!!! Enjoy and happy reading (and cake eating.) x Michele