I hope you enjoy this cake photo of our boat cake. We did Ronan’s birth announcements with a sailboat on the cover so I thought a sailboat cake for his first birthday would be fun. I couldn’t find what I had in mind so I took my rectangular cake pan and made a template out of cardboard. I used two rectangular 13 X 9” cake pans and two boxes of cake mix. The first cake I cut in half diagonally. One side was the big sail and the other was cut 2/3 of the way down for the small sail. I used the extra bottom piece to cut out a circle for the sun.
The second cake was used for the body of the boat and the water. I cut the cake 2/3 down and used the bigger section for the boat and the water underneath it – using frosting to denote the two separate objects. The remaining portion was cut in half to extend the water on either side.
After frosting the cake I used pretzel rods for the mast and smaller pretzel sticks for the sun’s rays. The baked goldfish were added last – my four year old’s favorite part because he got to help with the decorating. We hope you enjoy it. As you can see from the cake photo it was simple to make and fun to decorate.
More Boat and Submarine Cake Photo Ideas
Cake photo by Lisa T., Waterford, CT
This sailboat cake was for my son Owen’s second birthday. I copied it from a cake photo I saw in a magazine.
I cut a square cake in half for the sails and the bottom and then a smaller triangle for the jib (front sail) I frosted it with shades of blue and named it the SS OWEN with a toothpick flag printed out on the computer.
Cake photo by DL D’A., Toronto, Canada
The schooner base was vanilla cake baked in a silicone loaf pan with the two end pinched to a point using large metal bulldog clips. The sails are sugar cookie baked on a cookie sheet and cut to shape as soon as it is removed from the oven.
The sails are held together to the wafer rolls and pogo sails with royal icing and left flat to dry over night. The base (ocean) is a 9×12 pan of brownie iced blue. The floor boards on deck are cut layers from chocolate coated wafer cookies. Decorations on deck are barrels cut from cylindrical wafer cookies and the life preservers are gummy life savers. The border around the deck is sugar coated sour gummy worms. .Hope you like the cake photo.
Cake photo by Karen A., Lexington, KY
This cake was for a friend’s baby shower with a nautical theme. The bottom cake is a full sheet cake. The boat is made from two 9” round cakes that I cut in a boat shape and covered with white icing. The windows are made of peppermint candies and the rails are made of string licorice and toothpicks. The captain wheel and anchor are made of blue fondant and the sail is a kabob stick and cardstock paper.
Cake photo by Jen A., Statesville, NC
This is a cake photo of my son’s first birthday cake. I made it myself using a 9×12 pan and a mix. Once the cake was baked, I cut diagonally down the middle so I would have 2 triangles to use as the sails. I made one slightly smaller than the other.
I also made a 2nd cake and cut the boat (bottom) piece from it, the sunshine and the two fish. The fish were given to my son as his cake to do with as he chose and the sailboat was for everyone else. After everything was cut, I decorated the cake using whipped vanilla icing. To finish off the water theme, I had made blue Jell-O and cut it up into small squares and placed it at the bottom of the sailboat to make it appear the boat was sailing on the water.
The Jell-O was a big hit. We substituted it for ice cream!
Cake photo by Rebecca P., Nikiski, AK
Well my husband and I live across a bay in Alaska and we run a tourist business on an island in the bay so we are all about the water and of course anything BOATS! When our son’s 1st birthday came around I naturally thought to do some sort of boat cake.
Basically I cut this cake freehand but you could look at our boat cake photo as a guide. I baked two 9×13 sheet cakes. I then cut one of the cakes from corner to corner with one side bigger than the other. That made the two sails. Then I cut an elongated half circle out of the other cake to make the boat itself.
The crab and fish were cut and pieced together out of all the scraps and frosted heavily to cover any irregularities. It was actually pretty easy once I got started however my frosting was a little too soft and would have worked better if I had cooled it a little more (although not too much otherwise it would tear the cake).
The only other thing that I have found is helpful is after the cake cools completely and you have assembled it in the shape that you want; then you lightly frost all sides of the cake with a basic white frosting to seal in the moisture. Let this very thin layer dry before you start frosting for real, this helps to also not tear pieces of cake off as you decorate.
Cake photo by Sally B., Denver, CO
My Mother-In-Law made this awesome cake for my son’s 1st Birthday Sailboat Party and I am submitting these cake pictures.
This is an idea that was modified from the Creative Cooks cookbook. She used a knife to cut the cake in the shape of a boat after it was baked, placed it on a cardboard sheet and frosted the sheet and bottom of cake with a frosting tip. She made blue waves that also “splash” on the side of the boat.
The sails, flags, and anchor are frosted sugar cookies. To save time (and make it much easier!) the sails can be made out of waxed paper and the flags out of fruit roll-ups. The flags were “glued” with frosting to strings of red licorice. Although you can’t see it in this photo, a candycane (with the curve removed) is used for the mast between the sails.
Final touches to the sailboat include peppermint lifesavers on the side of the boat, red licorice looped through the anchor, and “S.S. Isaac” (the name of my son) written on the side of the boat to personalize the cake.
This cake was a big hit at my son’s first birthday party!
Cake photo by Allison L., Doha, Qatar
(This Yellow Submarine & Jello cake is one of the most original cake ideas I’ve seen. How about we just call it a “Jello Submarine”… ;-)
My son who is turning three requested a Yellow Submarine party. What a challenge! (We are coaching him so that he will request a more traditional theme for #4.)
For the Yellow Submarine & Jello cake, I baked a triple batch of white cake (easier to frost with a light color) in a HUGE round pan meant for baking our Thanksgiving turkey. I used a pattern I made on butcher paper where the sub was in three parts, fin, body and periscope, and I cut these parts out of the cooled cake.
I put the pieces (and some leftovers for patching) in the freezer for a day or so. THIS IS IMPORTANT! You get no little cake pills in the frosting, and the room temperature frosting chills and stiffens on the cake as you go.
I frosted the cake yellow on the morning of the party and decorated it with candy from a candy stall. Licorice is hard to manipulate, but cutting it lengthwise into skinny strips and microwaving it for a few seconds makes it easier.
I placed the cake on a piece of tin foil on the white cake board (a shelf from the closet), and put chunks of blue jello around the cake to look like water – the tin foil underneath really makes this Yellow Submarine & Jello cake sparkle!
It was a fun party after all because of its unusual theme and funky cake as you can see from the cake photo…
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