I need help! i'm making a cake now my friend's sweet sixteen birthday tomorrow. The theme is Island Princess (she's from St. Lucia) and I'm making a caribbean themed cake. I want o decorate it so it looks like the ocean and the sea shore. I saw some great cakes for inspiration in the photo gallery. I'd like to put "sand" on it, but How can I get that sand effect w/o using nilla wafers or graham cracker crumbs? Please help... I know this is really last minute, but I thought I could use brown sugar (turbinado sugar) but Im not sure if it'll work.
Brown sugar can be used as sand but often for texture it is mixed with some cookie crumbs. On one cake I did I wanted a white sand so I used the sugar sprinkles in white with a bit of black, yellow and pink mixed in. With the brown sugar just be prepared to add more after the first bit because if there is any grease it will soak it up and look wet. Just add more if you notice that this happened.
I just crush up the vanilla wafers too. I like the idea of mixing the different colors though!
I just made a light house and forgot the grahm crackers at the store so I used crunchy Granola bars for sand.
Try organic sugar. I use that along with a little gold edible glitter sprinkled over a thin layer of piping gel. In my photos you can see it on my flip flop cake. Good Luck.
I use some of the cake that I've cut off when leveling. I crumble it up slightly and bake it on low heat for a while, then crumble it up more, bake it more then crumble more and so on. I just keep checking on it until it is dried and crumbly. It tastes good and browns nicely, and does not add extra flavors to the cake.
I have done this twice and it worked great, but both cakes were white to start with, I guess it may not work with some flavors of cake, But is cheap and easy.
good luck
I used Nilla wafers on my surfer cake but you can also use toasted coconut!
i didnt read through all the responses, but yes!!! i agree with your plan to use turbinado sugar. it is PERFECT! i glued some down on a cakeboard with a watered down coat of piping gel which is nice because its clear unlike icing, then the sugar sticks well and if you have gold sparkle dust to sprinkle a bit on top, it looks really cool.
http://www.cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=gallery&file=displayimage&pid=593513
I used cinnamon and sugar and it came out fine.
http://www.cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=gallery&file=displayimage&pid=593563
here's the full picture 
One more way if you want a lighter sand is Animal Crackers. There are so many things you can crush to make sand, just think about the color of sand you are looking for and there you go.
Hi from Spain. I have used crashed cookies for this, it looks great and taste great too. You can choose between many kind of cookies so you can get the colour you want and maybe you will ear something like this: "Mmmm Can I have more of this sand, please? I think I could eat a tone!" 
Domino makes a product called Brownulated sugar. It's a granulated brown sugar and looks just like sand. I've made cakes with it several times.
adding brownulated sugar to my grocery list! LOL
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