Coolest Pirate Birthday Cake Ideas

My mom made this pirate birthday cake for my 5 year old daughter and 2 year old son. It was a huge hit.

When making the cake it helps to freeze the cake and to use a thicker icing. The kids and adults loved this cake. I would highly recommend this cake.

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Pirate birthday cake by Amand S., Western Australia

I made this Pirate birthday cake for a friend’s child. This is simply a chocolate cake stacked in layers to look like a boat. There’s one main base piece and then two layers at the back to make 3 levels of decking. I put a double layer of cake at the front of the ship so the front was the same height as the highest level at the back of the ship.

The cake is iced in butter icing and then I lightly dragged a fork along the edges to make it look like woodwork.

DECORATIONS: I used Curly Whirly bars (chocolate bars) along each side of the ship to make it look like railings. I made windows by cutting ice-cream wafers into squares and then piping lines to make shutters. I cut chocolate licorice logs into pieces to make cannons and stuck one finger of a Kit Kat to make a plank.

I melted some chocolate and put some on a jelly baby’s feet and stuck him to the plank. I also piped a chocolate anchor and rope onto greaseproof paper and when set put those into the icing as well. Lastly I pushed a jelly baby into the icing at the front of the ship and made a treasure chest out of a share-pack size smartie box.

At the back of the ship I placed a mound of unused yellow icing. Placed the candles into that and also stuck in a stranded jelly baby holding an “SOS” toothpick flag. I made up two packets of blue jelly (and added a bit more dye and 4 teaspoons of plain gelatin to get better color and to make sure the jelly didn’t melt in the summer heat). I then chopped it up and placed it around the ship. I cut the sails out of card making paper glued on a skull and crossbones and then put the sails into the pirate birthday cake using kebab skewers.

Pirate birthday cake by Jeanette H., Cambridge, UK

I used a round cake tin with a hole in the middle (we call it a ‘tulband’ shape) for the base of the Pirate birthday cake. This I cut in half, straightened the top, cut a small piece of the bottom to stabilize the cake and then glued them together with icing. The 2 halves were also held together with a few wooden tooth picks. I poured the rest of the icing over the cake and also a bit onto the plate for the cake to stick.

I then put the cake on the plate, touched up the icing a little bit and put it in the freezer for 3/4 of an hour. With the cut-offs from the top I made a treasure chest (just cut a square make an incision for the lid, put icing on it ,open the lid a bit, put icing in and then add some silver balls from ‘Super Cook’-baking aisle) and an island. I just added a palm tree to the island. The Pirate birthday cake was sand color anyway!

After 3/4 of an hour the cake was strong enough to add the rest of the decorations: Cadbury fingers for the railing plank and guns, Maltesers for the ammunition and the sails with pictures which I downloaded. I also added some plastic pirate figures to make it look real. As suggested here on the site I added the candles to the side of the ship in order to avoid the sails going up in flames.

Here’s my icing recipe which I took from a Jamie Oliver book: 100 gr / 3 3/4oz butter, 100 gr / 3 3/4oz plain cooking chocolate, 100 gr / 3 3/4oz icing sugar, 3 tablespoons milk. Melt the ingredients in a bowl over some lightly simmering water. Stir until blended well and allow to cool a little bit. You can pour it over the cake and then let it set for the bigger areas or cool it a bit more and use a knife to decorate smaller areas or stick things on.

All the children (and their parents as well actually) were very impressed with this Pirate birthday cake. And it didn’t just look great it tasted really good as well! The cutting was rather funny actually, all the kids picked their favorite part of the ship and they all wanted a bit of the ammunition and treasure.

All in all a great cake thanks everybody here for the tips!

Pirate birthday cake by Silvana I., Mansfield

For this pirate birthday cake, I used a roasting pan with 2 cake mixes for the ship then cut the front out and used that for the top where Jack Sparrow stands. Frost and run a knife across for the shipboard effect. Use wafers for the rails, Rolos for the barrels on top, cannons on the sides, half an ice-cream cone for the crow’s nest.

Pirate birthday cake by Tyra M., San Antonio, TX

My son wanted a pirate party so of course the cake had to match, and so I created a pirate birthday cake. I started out just planning on winging it but it actually turned out really cute. I took 1 box of cake mix and split it up between two round cake pans; make sure you use non-stick spray on your cake pans.

I cooked the cake, let it cool and then placed it in the freezer for about 45 minutes so I could later carve it without it falling apart. I then took each cake and cut it in halves. “4 pieces”, then I trimmed the bottom so that when I stand them up beside each other they will stay in place. Then you line them up all 4 pieces side by side I stuck the “shish kabob” sticks through them (3 as you can see from the pictures).

I iced the pirate birthday cake with chocolate frosting. I used “whipped” icing; it seems to spread a lot easier, just gently slide a fork across to make grooves like wood on the boat. Then I just randomly put candies on the boat “Hershey almond kisses” as gold, “Hershey’s treasure” as treasure chests, “Malt balls” as cannonballs, and small pirate figures. Good luck and I hope this makes it easy for you.

Pirate birthday cake by Stacey R., Richmond, VA

This pirate birthday cake was for my son’s 6th birthday. For the ship I used Wilton’s football pan and a round cake cut to fit to make the ship taller. The ship sat on top of a sheet cake iced with buttercream icing to look like water. I molded sharks with Wilton’s candy melts, which the children loved.

Pirate birthday cake by Rebecca P., Nikiski, AK

I first got this pirate birthday cake idea from the internet and actually some pictures from this site. One of the instructions I found for making a pirate ship said that people had trouble getting the cake to stay upright and together so it recommended using a little less water (1-1/4cups instead of 1-1/3 cups) and making the frosting firmer by adding powdered sugar to it.

So I began by baking two 8” round cakes and then a 9×11” sheet cake. I let them all cool and put them in the freezer overnight. In the morning I pulled them out and cut both round cakes in half also trimming the bottoms of all the halves so they had a flat spot on the bottom.

Then I stood the halves upright and frosted them together with a thin layer of frosting in between the layers. Then I skewered them with three long shish kabob skewers to hold the layers. Then continued frosting all around. It worked great!

The sheet cake was easily done and could be varied with other ideas. The only suggestion I have is: wait until the last minute to put the mast in and also the trees as the tree stalks were made of wafer cookie sticks and they wanted to get soggy too early. Other than that, the pirate birthday cake was really pretty easy. Have fun!! My 2-year-old’s birthday went awesome and was a blast!!

Pirate birthday cake by Lynn E., Blair, NE

For this pirate birthday cake I started with two 9×13 cakes and a Styrofoam template covered with foil. Frosting is chocolate caramel and white with blue food coloring for water.

Railing is made of pretzels. Masts are three large candles for 3rd birthday. Sails are paper. Crows nest is an ice cream cone.

Steering wheel is a cookie. Cannon balls are milk balls. Guns are Nestle’s crunch stix. Kegs are Rollos put end to end scratched with a toothpick. Shark is paper. Alligator is a gummy animal. Flag is from clip art. Pirate is Fisher Price. Lettering is from decorating aisle in grocery.

Pirate birthday cake by Sarah P., Corbeil, Ontario

By exploring your theme-site I was able to create my own version of a pirate birthday cake for the party. I love creating cakes and themes for my son’s birthday. I usually take a lot of time in decorating the cakes and making them from scratch. But this year I simplified the task by simply using 1 box of Duncan Hine’s chocolate cake mix along with whipped vanilla and chocolate icing from Betty Crocker’s selection of delited icing selection. I used my son’s Lego pirate ship and used parts of it for the cake ornaments which worked out well. Thank you LEGO!!

To make the ship I took 2 round cake pans (the usual) cut them in half, glued them together with vanilla icing, and sat them on a tray with the half moon up placing both pairs of cakes side by side.

I then cut off a bit of the ends to allow the cakes to be longer and used the remains of the pieces for the island and boat bow or other elevated areas of the boat to have texture and depth. I covered the pirate birthday cake with chocolate icing and added the Lego pirate figurines and Lego ship parts.

Over all It was a success and to save you the trouble of decorating it the same day I did mine the night before and put it in the freezer. I took it out in the morning prior to the birthday party in the afternoon. Enjoy the fun in making your own pirate birthday cake!

Pirate birthday cake by Michelle J., Palm Bay, FL

I searched for a pirate birthday cake and saw a few that were along the same lines as mine, but I wanted it to be different, I got the idea from family fun 1st and saw that there were a lot of basically the same ship ideas out here. I wanted it to look like a battle scene, that’s how the two ships came in to play.

I used 4 Betty Crocker cake mixes, 1 1/2 white can of frosting dyed blue for the water, and 2 chocolate cans for the ship. The pan that I used for the “water” was bigger than the normal 9×13 (I’m not sure what the size was to be exact), but for the ships I used 2 loaf pans. The idea called for two round cakes cut in half, but it might be better to use the loaf pans, one cake mix for each ship. The loaf pans were filled up unevenly to make the ship body; after the pans were completely cooled I put them in the refrigerator over night.

The cakes were firm enough to work with in the morning. I iced the ‘ocean’ first; white frosting, 8 drops of blue, and 4 drops of green gel color to get the color of the ocean. I made small swirls to make the wave effect. The ships, starting with cutting the V shape in the front (have them (2) on top of each other so they will be even) and then cutting the one that will be on top in section for the deck and captain’s quarters. Frost between them, and then just frost the rest of the ship. The cannon balls were whoppers and Rollo’s were used for the side cannon ports, pretzels were used on the one ship as a railing with the red licorice, black was used as well, and Hershey candy bar for windows in the back of the ship and plank.

The battle was moving the ship to the water ever so carefully! This was the most terrifying part for me because the weight of the back end of both cakes wanted to break off, I used a skewer to secure it, a couple toothpicks, and at the back I had to add pretzels ‘just in case’. I used a small dowel for the masts and ramming rod in front, and white foam sheets to do the sails.

This pirate birthday cake turned out GREAT! It was fun to make and the hardest part was adding it to the ocean, the rest was smooth sailing!

Pirate birthday cake by Criss M., Hanau, Germany

This pirate birthday cake was a bit tricky since I’m not much of a baker but my son wanted one so much after seeing all the great cakes on here, and so I had to try it. First I found a picture of a ship cake my son liked at Partymakers by Renee Harris. I made 2 pound cakes, and then I froze them.

I cut the cakes in half but only ended up using 3 halves because I thought it was a pretty good size. I then sliced off a bit of the rounded bottom till the pirate birthday cake “stood up” by itself. Next I just frosted between the layers, all around, and decorated with the sails and pirates. I do recommend you freeze this cake before frosting, as it made it so much easier to work with.

Pirate birthday cake by Stephanie K., Fort Lauderdale, FL

Light up your party with the infamous Captain Black Beard and his booty laden ship the Jolly Roger! I found a similar pirate birthday cake recipe online and had a ball getting creative with it (without the hassle of making it from scratch). I never did anything like this before and had a spare cake because I thought I would totally mess this up, but it was so much easier than what it looks.

You need: two 8″ or 9″ round baking pans, two cake mixes (any flavor), two chocolate frostings, one box of Piroulines for the railing, one box of Waffeletten (Belgian cookie) for the cannon, one stick of Rollos Candy for the treasure, one box of Milkballs for the cannon balls, one box of Swedish fish (sea life adds color), one box of raspberry Fruit Roll Ups for the Caribbean Ocean, one box of birthday candles as the cannon’s fire, three wooden skewers for the masts, eight paper pirate flags cut to size, two Jolly Roger Flag Prints from online, cut to size (2-3) Pirates (Playmobil).

Bake the cakes, let cool, and place in fridge till hard enough to work with. Carefully cut each cake in half (half moons). Round sides of half moons will create the bottom of your ship. Flip 2 of the half moons over to expose bottom, frost and carefully paste the two half moons together (center of ship).

Frost outsides and add final two half moons to each side careful to make sure what was originally the top is now the outside walls of your pirate ship.

Finish frosting the whole ship (long broad strokes across the sides and tops creates illusion of planks). With hard part over, decorate your ship Pirate style. Place Piroulines along length of perimeter of deck for railings. Place Rollos on deck along with Milkball cannon balls neatly stacked with three on bottom and one on top. Place the fruit roll-ups around the ship on cake plate and place Swedish fish on top (kids love to sneak a fish while you’re not looking).

Carefully bore 4 holes per side of ship for your Waffeletten cannons (Your child’s age determines # of cannons on cake). Place Wafelleten cannons with chocolate dipped side into cake and slightly tilting cannon up toward sky. Insert birthday candle in each. Lastly, on completing your pirate birthday cake, add flag skewers and pirates. Tips: Bake cake night before, leave overnight in fridge, and decorate before party. This cake is full of action and sure to impress your child and friends.

This cake provides for some fun candle blowing and eating action too. Just make sure the cannonball fire doesn’t make it to your carpet!

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