We have a tradition of letting each of our children choose whatever shape or style of cake they would like for their birthday. My husband and I team up together and try to create their dream.
Recently, our son Mattathias had his heart set on a battleship cake for his 7th birthday. I was excited about this one because now we had the natural food colorings from ColorKitchen to make blue. I’ve been playing around with natural colorings such as beat juice and chlorophyll for years. But blue was a color I have long dreamed of and never could figure out.
Below is a basic step-by-step guide to building and decorating a battleship cake. Perhaps some of you would like to make a battleship for your son as well!
STEP 1: I mixed up three recipes of our favorite carrot cake. Divide the dough equally between a 9x13-inch pan and a 15x10-inch pan.
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STEP 2: When the cakes are baked and cooled, we started with cutting the big one as the base, and the smaller one we cut into pieces for the upper decks. Set your bottom layer on a cutting board or sturdy tray, big enough to hold the cake and withstand the weight. However you choose to design your battleship, you will want to cut and configure each piece to match the style you want. It doesn’t hurt to draw out your design beforehand.
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STEP 3: I frosted between the layers, and the decks using the cream cheese frosting. We made about three batches of the frosting. We also shaved down the sides of each level of the ship to match our intended design.
STEP 4: I used activated charcoal (NS097) to color some of the white frosting into grey. The amount of charcoal to use depends on how dark you want the frosting to be. We used about one capsule of charcoal to make the grey. The sides were all frosted in grey.
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STEP 5: We used trimmed Panda licorice bars (SC812) for the cannons, and Panda licorice chews (SC 017) for the railing posts. Toothpicks inserted into one end of the licorice bars helped keep the cannons in place.
STEP 6:ColorKitchen’s blue food coloring was used on the frosting for the trim of the ship and water lapping on the sides.
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STEP 7: I added even more charcoal to the grey to make the dark grey/black text on the side of the ship, as well as the fish and top of the railings.
And there you have it!
The result was something my son will remember for years to come — a truly realistic battleship cake. And let me just say that it was pretty delicious, too!