I have a beach/Hawaii theme cake to make for a nine year old girl.

I'm having trouble finding information on how to get the look of sand on a cake?

What I'm planning is a hula girl under a palm tree on sand with some shells around, and making water waves out of fondant around the cake (the cake will be covered with fondant)

Can anyone suggest any other ideas re: Hawaii/beach theme?

Thanking You, Marie

Crushed graham crackers work great. If you want to see how it looks on a cake them take a look at my photos and you'll see a 3D dinosaur that I did and he is sitting on sand/graham crackers. If you are covering the whole cake in fondant though you will need to frost it or use piping gel on top to get the crumbs to stick. The other thing I've seen used for sand is brown sugar. I would think that would add a lot of sweet if you cover the whole top of the cake with brown sugar so the graham crackers might be a better option. Good luck.

Crushed graham crackers work great. If you want to see how it looks on a cake them take a look at my photos and you'll see a 3D dinosaur that I did and he is sitting on sand/graham crackers. If you are covering the whole cake in fondant though you will need to frost it or use piping gel on top to get the crumbs to stick. The other thing I've seen used for sand is brown sugar. I would think that would add a lot of sweet if you cover the whole top of the cake with brown sugar so the graham crackers might be a better option. Good luck.

I used crushed graham crackers also for a retirement beach cake. I did have someone suggest brown sugar also, but I I've never tried that.

Graham cracker crumbs or brown sugar. I've done both...preferred brown sugar.

I did a Luau cake and for the middle layer, I made it look like a grass skirt by piping tan icing with the basketweave tip, using the smooth side to make it look like the grass. Then, I cut out gumpaste flowers with the 5 petal cutter, and thinned the edges, as if you're doing the first step of the fondant rose. I stuck those in alternating bright colors around the edge and added a center to each one. So cute! Looked just like a skirt. You could use green instead of tan too.

Awesome Idea for the sand! Thank you!
Oh and Temptation I love your cakes!

MandySue, I love that idea!! do you have a pic of it?

Blessings, Marie

Domino sugar makes a brown sugar called "brownulated" sugar that works well. It's a pourable brown sugar.
I've also used crushed Keebler pecan sandies (make sure no one has a nut allergy!)
Good luck!

Thank you. Post a pic when you get done. I'll be anxious to see how it goes.

To make sand I put a small drop of tan food coloring in regular sugar and use my fingers to blend it together, looks just like sand.


Edited: use food color paste not liquid.

I'd go with crushed graham cracker. Sugar will hugely alter the taste of the cake if ever they ear it.

I did a cake with "sand" on it last year. I used a combination of brown sugar, white sugar, and cinnamon. (I also added a little turbinado sugar, but you woudn't have to if you don't have it on hand.) It looked really good, and everyone loved the lightly crunchy cinnamon and sugar mix with the chocolate cake.

I used vanilla wafers with just alittle bit of brown sugar mixed in it for the dinosour cake I did for my grandson. It's in my pics if you want to see what it looks like...

I used vanilla wafers with just alittle bit of brown sugar mixed in it for the dinosour cake I did for my grandson. It's in my pics if you want to see what it looks like...

I used vanilla wafers with just alittle bit of brown sugar mixed in it for the dinosour cake I did for my grandson. It's in my pics if you want to see what it looks like...

I used the multi color mini vanilla wafers on the beach cake in my picks. I only added a few of the darker ones so most of the sand would be the lighter color with darker specs sprinkled through out it.

I found a recipe for sand in the recipe section that used vanilla wafers, the Wilton cupcake crunch and gold sanding sugar. I couldn't find the cupcake crunch, but I did find the turtle crunch, which I thought had better colors anyway!

That's what I used on the beach engagement cake in my photos...worked great!

Karen

For a beach cake I made recently, I used the food processor to grind up 50% vanilla wafers and 50% cinnamon graham crakers.

I was delighted with the combo. The client said that it was wonderful, too--not too crunchy with the buttercream under it, at all.

Rae