I have always loved baking, but never really played around with cake decorating until my kids were born. I started off by decorating on the top of the cake and then for my daughter’s 4th birthday I decided to try a 3-D cake. Her theme was pirate party and I started searching for inspiration and finally I came across some treasure chests that I used as goody boxes but decided to take it from there and design a cake.
The bottom of the cake is a 4 layer chocolate cake with dark chocolate frosting. The lid took some thought, I knew I couldn’t make it out of cake, it would be too heavy so I decided to make it out of paper mache. I used an oatmeal container as my mold to give me the curve. I matched the paint to the frosting and painted the lid. I used wooden skewers to prop the lid open and filled the chest with jewels. Ring pops, candy necklaces and other jewel looking candies. I used melted caramel for the accents and lock on the Pirate Treasure Chest Birthday Cake.
Melted caramel, great idea!