Jake and the Never Land Pirates theme cake

My neighbor approached me some weeks ago with the request of making the boys birthday cake. Since their birthday is in the same month they celebrate it together. The party theme was Jake and the Never Land Pirates. I have vaguely heard about this children's tv show, but never actually watch it so I had to look it up. I had no idea what to make but it had to be two cakes so they both can have their own. 

I came across this very cool 3D cake and I decided to go for it and make one for the boys. Two days before the party I started with baking the biscuits first. I started with baking two rectangular chocolate cakes using this biscuit recipe:
- 400 gr eggs
- 200 gr sugar
- 170 gr flour
- 30 gr cocoa powder
- pinch of salt
- lemon zest
oven temperature 170C

Then I baked two vanilla cakes. For the bottom cake I used:
- 300 gr eggs
- 150 gr sugar
- 130 gr flour
- pinch of salt
- lemon zest

And for the top tire I used:
- 200 gr eggs
- 100 gr sugar
- 70 gr flour
- pinch of salt
- lemon zest

While the cakes cooled I made some crème pâtissière using this recipe:
- 750 ml milk
- 150 gr sugar
- 3 egg yolks
- 50 gr custard powder
- vanilla pot/essence/sugar
- pinch of salt

Then the next day I made butter cream I using this recipe:
- 128 gr water
- 338 gr sugar
- 150 gr egg white
- pinch of cream of tartar
- 750 gr room temperature butter in cubes
- 200 gr melted dark chocolate

I put about half aside for crumb coating and to the other half I added some melted chocolate.

Because there wasn't enough I had to make  more:
- 85 gr water
- 225 gr sugar
- 100 gr egg white
- pinch of cream of tartar
- 500 gr room temperature butter in cubes
- handful small diced fresh strawberries

After all this mise and place the day before it was time to put the cake together. I started with the 3D boat first. I wanted to recreate Bucky, Jake's boat. I found a template online, but this boat wouldn't be big enough for 40 people so I carved the boat shape myself. I started with one, then put it on top of the other and carved out the second one. One sheet of biscuit would be the bottom, the other one will be used to shape the boat in height. Since the bottom was too thick to leave it like that and it was actually a bit too thin to fill it, I carefully slice it in half. I  sprayed it with some sugar syrup, spread some raspberry jam and crème pâtissière on it and on the other half I spread the chocolate butter cream.

Where possible I would fill the cake. On some places filling it would make it less stable so I would just use some butter cream. After that I crumble coated the cake and put it in the fridge. 

Then it was time for the two tire cake. I started with cutting them in three parts. After spraying all the parts with some sugar syrup I spread some raspberry jam and when I run out of that I used apricot jam. The next layer would be some very thinly slice fresh strawberrys, some crème pâtissière and I ended up with strawberry butter cream. I kept doing this till all three layers were filled. These cakes also went into the fridge. 

Now I had time to do some modeling. I wanted to see if I could make Jake from fondant. And I also like Skully, the parrot. For both I found a video which I watched over and over until I could get it right. Jake was very tricky to make since he has lots of parts. Since it took me so much time to make it, I skipped some miner details. Skully was slightly easier to make, but again I had to skip on some details. Both turned out pretty cool. As I didn't had any green fondant, I made a blue and a purple parrot. Since they didn't had the right color I decided to make them Skully's friends. After I had green fondant, I of course made the "real" Skully. 

By this time the cakes were ready to be coated with fondant. For Bucky I used a kilo chocolate fondant (Satin Ice) which was very easy to work with, mixed with one kilo marshmallow fondant. This was too much, I think I ended up only using one kilo. I made the railing, the slight, the windows, the door, the ladder and used yellow fondant for outlining the boat. I also added the number 3 and 5 since that was the boys age.

For the bottom layer of the two tire cake I used some blue fondant. I didn't know what I wanted to make, but since it's a pirate theme cake I thought about making something with and ocean theme. Then I made some waves with different shades of blue. 

Since I still had lots of chocolate fondant left I used some for the top layer as well. No idea what to make there, but I would figure it out on the fly. 

I also carved out two swords (the one Jake uses) and thought I might use them as decoration.

On the day of the party I had all morning to figure out what I wanted to do with the two tire cake. I also had time to add some details on Bucky. Since I had so much room on the back of the boat I added one boy's name. There was no more room for another name so his brother's name went in front of the boat, of course on the side of his age.

I've seen some really fun cakes with octopuses so I wanted to make some also. I made the first one so fast and it was so much fun I decided to make two more. I put the bigger octopus on the boat to cover the seams and to make it more fun I punch out some golden and silver "coins" and sprinkled that around the octopus. Now it seems like he's been dragging or stealing the money.

The other two octopuses went on the bottom of the two tire cake. Also surrounded by coins of course. Then I wanted to make two Skullys. One would be in front of the ship and the other one will be used on the bottom of the two tire cake. They would be different in size as well. The one on the ship is slightly bigger.

To make the ocean more alive I added some coral and some seaweed. At first Skully was on a big raft, but I found out that I didn't had enough room for my second layer so he had to move to a much smaller raft. 

By the time I got to the top layer I didn't had much inspiration. I didn't want to make it to busy since the bottom layer was already very vibrant. I used some chocolate fondant to make wooden planks and used it to surround the cake. I placed the two parrots on top and surround them with golden coins making them guarding the money. Then with Jake's colors (red and white) I made a banner. 
Last minute I decided to turn Skully's friends into pirates as well by giving them a pirate bandanna. I also made tiny tiny little skulls, just like Skully's bandanna. Gotta love the details. 

After I placed this cake on top of the ocean cake I had to make room for Skully. He's now on a very tiny raft with just a bottle to keep him company. 

These cakes were a 3 days project (without much eating or resting) but it was lots of fun. And very satisfying seeing the reaction of the birthday boys and their guests.