YArrrrr! Said the Pirate.

The weekend before International Talk like a Pirate Day was my nephew Blair's fourth birthday and when asked what he'd like for his birthday by his mother (a month previously) he said simply "I surprise party at Vaari's (grandfather) house."

So the excitement began... I had been brainstorming and new that he was mad keen on Bear Grylls Man vs. Wild and proposed BLAIR GRYLLS BOY VS. WILD! But Alas! Apparently we've moved on to PIRATES now.

My parents home is well known by local kids as the Pirate Party House. For years my brother and I had pirate birthday parties (pirate, fairies and peter-pan for me) and our big backyard meant that anyone and everyone could be invited (there was none of this 'you can bring 5 friends' business). We had the usual chocolate coins and invitations with burnt edges and tea stains, but my parents made it really special. When we awoke on the morning of our parties the PIRATES HAD LANDED!! Constructed in our front yard (in the middle of the night by some very hard-working, sleep-deprived and over-excited grown up fairies) would be a very large climbable, sailable, magical pirate ship! And to accompany this we'd have huge chests of dress-ups and a rusted old tin treasure chest filled to the brim with all sorts of gold and silver treasure - goblets, chains, mirrors, coins, you name it, if it's piratey it's in our garden!

One of the memories my mother has from these parties is the look on a child's face when her parents said 'okay, it's time to go, put the treasure back now' and my mum said 'oh no! you found that treasure - it's all yours!'. (we never needed lolly bags ;) )

So the pressure was on - could we recreate the pirate magic? You betcha!

This time the pirate ship was constructed in daylight (phew!) and with a whole lot of new materials (my parents are kicking themselves for throwing out the old cot frame and cupboard doors we used to use). We found a brilliant chest and plenty of treasure, and even manage to hunt out enough dress ups for the party.

I got cake-planning and chose to make a pirate ship with my first human figurine. The cake was to be chocolate and I flicked through my recipes and found one that I've been wanting to try - Nigella Lawson's Devils Food Cake.

What I didn't realise was that I was about to make the most delicious chocolate cake I have ever eaten or cooked in my life. Oh my. It's super rich so we served it to the kids with vanilla icecream, and I adapted the recipe to be dairy, soy and egg free as per my new restrictions (hey - i'm not missing out!). The full recipe can be found on my other blog here! The finished product may not be perfect but there's no doubt it's a pirate ship - it even sported a jolly roger flag my dad carefully painted with his large fingers for it :D

What a great success - They my be grandparents now, but boy have they still got it ;)