Mary Rose Cake Tutorial

Last Saturday was a national holiday, so our American friend hosted a Thanksgiving party. I offered to do the cakes. For the adults I made the very indulgent Bailey's Salted Chocolate Pie of course we didn't want the kids digging into that, so for them, I made the Mary Rose.

We had a round sponge cake that my husband had bought home from work (his company makes cake mixing machines and he often comes home with cake on testing days!) plus a couple of Castella cakes. You could easily use this to make a pirate ship for a pirate party. It was easy to put together…

Start with a round cake and 2 blocks of sponge and a jar of jam to use as glue…

Place one of the blocks on top of the circular cake then cut it so it is as wide as the block of cake…

Take one of the off cuts and place it at the front - and after repeat for the front with the other piece…

Cut it again so the back is the same width too…now do the front end…

Now to build it up, one block will go on the back. The front cut 1/3 from the end. Use some jam to stick everything together, adding some jam to the bottom of the ship will also stop it from sliding around. Once all the sponge is cut, simply build it up…

It should look something like this…

Then all you need to do is cover it with your preferred frosting, this could have done with a bit more smoothing over but I was short of time. The sails were simple, cut some printer paper and thread them onto bamboo sticks, I used a bit of masking tape to hold them in place.

Of course, if you were going for the whole pirate theme you would want to add some mini figures and the such like, my distraction technique worked, the kids were happily distracted by ship cake and the adults got to over indulge! Win-Win!