13" x 9" cake

Hi, Kim. Yes, a madeira cake would be your best bet. It's denser than a sponge, so will better support whatever you want to put on top. I don't personally think you'll need to freeze it - a madeira will keep easily for 4 days or so, so you've plenty of time for decorating it. Not sure about the amounts needed for your size of tin, but I made a Night Garden cake for my DGS1 last year and this is the recipe I used for the bottom layer, a round 9” orange Madeira cake, 3” high (sorry about the imperial measures - I'm old school!).

12oz softened butter/margarine
12oz caster sugar
1lb plain flour
2.5 teasp baking powder
6 eggs
2 tblsp lemon/orange juice
Orange rind

Gas mark 3, 1 hour and 30/40 minutes. Grease and line tin.
Cream butter and sugar.
Sift flour, beat in eggs 1 at a time (spoonful of flour after each). Fold rest of flours in, then rind and juice.
Into prepared tin, hollow centre.
Cool 5 mins in tin, turn out.

I made a couple of pirate cakes for DS back in the day. I'm sure you have plenty of ideas, but rice paper slotted onto straws made excellent sails, licquorice allsorts came in handy for cannons etc, and I still have the Lego pirates that strutted the decks!

Oh, flip me! And I haven't even made a cake for tea tomorrow.

Madeira is definitely the cake to use - because it is a much denser consistency it is easy to sculpt and carve into shape. I found a wonderful website last year when wanting to make a madeira cake for my grandson's 8th birthday. There is a chart of ingredients needed for different cake tin sizes. This is based on round tins, but she gives the volume as well, so you could measure the volume of your rectangular tin and refer to the chart accordingly. here's the link

For tomorrow, jingl? The cake tins only come out here on high days and holidays!

You guilt tripped me! I've made one now. (Only a quick all-in-one)

I might get round to making one for May Day.

I would definitely go along with freezing the cake. You will then be able to shape it without crumbling. If you are using butter cream icing, it will also keep it more free of crumbs.
I would love to see a photo of the finished pirate ship if you can manage to make your profile visible and upload one.

Haven't made a cake today, but I did make a bread pudding. On account of the loaf that DH bought at Asda a couple of days ago - it looked so lovely, nice and crusty, freshly baked. So I cut two slices for lunch...it was the most bland, tasteless bread I have ever had. It was like eating white fluff with a crispy bit round the edge.
So, it is now bread pudding.

Thank you for all the ideas - I really appreciate it. Still a bit bothered about the amount to make, and I'm hopeless at volumes etc. But I'll try the link you sent, Ash Tree. Many thanks. OK - I'll attempt to post a picture when it's all done. Last year's cake was Buzz Lightyear in a car!

Crikey Kim you must have a very creative streak!
I remember trying to make a Hungry Caterpillar cake for DS about 30 years ago and that was enough for me!
Good luck!

Regarding quantities I've just googled and it's apparently twice the amounts you'd use for a 9" round tin, if that's any help?
You could always make a bit too much and use the surplus in muffin tin.

This gives you an idea. I needed to look up this when I had novelty cake tin with no clue about the quantities it needed.

www.kitchenscookshop.co.uk/guides/8/

This was a large number 1 . I followed advice and made this tin non stick by pasting it with melted plain cooing fat and eth shaking flour in yuntil ot was all coated I was almost surprised when it came out of the tin in a perfect shape.

I did not know that about Madeira cake being good for shaping. I will bear that in mind.

That kitchencookshop website it very useful. Thank you Nelliemoser.

Loopylou - where did you google it?

Thanks everyone.

I just googled something like 'ingredients for 13" x 9" cake tin' and it came up 1st or 2nd Kim

They won't eat the cake, just lick the icing,but you probably know this already.....