Treasure Chest Cake

Summer needed a huge cake for her huge luau party (around 400 guests!) for her son's 1st birthday. The party was a pirate themed extravaganza with a kiddie "walk the plank" and pirate costumes and decor everywhere. I knew I had to make something awesome when Summer asked me to recreate a pirate treasure chest that she'd seen online. Although she didn't want it to feed all of the guests, she wanted it to be a nice centerpiece. Here's what we came up with. This cake was a foot long, over 8 inches wide, over a foot tall, and super heavy! The picture doesn't do the size any justice.

The cake was a chocolate cake layered with buttercream and chocolate chips. Because the base was so tall, I made two separate layers of cake stacked on top of itself. Now for the nitty gritty... if you're not interested on how to make cakes, no need to read on :)

The top lid of the cake was made out of rice krispies and covered in marshmallow fondant. In order to keep the lid opened, I put in support under the lid and then skewered it into the cake till it was steady. The whole cake is covered and decorated with MMF. I first colored the the fondant brown and then let is sit till it dried. I "scratched" the dried fondant with a knife and made sure to leave nicks and different lines. Once that dried, I painted on layers of brown food coloring making sure to dye some areas darker than others until I thought it looked like wood. Then, I took the hardened fondant and simply adhered it to the side of the cake that was covered in buttercream. This gives the cake a pretty crisp edge.

The corners of the chest were painted with gold food coloring. The pearl necklace, "gold coins" and sword are all fondant. The green and red gems are peanut M&Ms and the yellow gems are both reeses pieces and fondant. The silver nuggets are tootsie rolls and dove chocolates covered in tin foil and the sand on the bottom is crushed graham crackers.

Hmm, I think that's about it :) It was SOOOOO MUCH FUN to make this cake. Summer was amazing to work with because she basically said, "here's kind of what I'm looking for but do whatever you think is best." I tried to make it look as "pirate treasure chest" as possible and really just loved every second of making this. I wasn't able to be there when Summer came to pick up the cake but she called me immediately after picking up the cake. She kept screaming (in a good way) and just told me how much she loved it. I wish I could've made it to the party to see the amazingness of a 1-year-old-Pirate-themed-Hawaiian-Luau :) Maybe next year, right?