I have a sand castle cake due on Sat. morning. The sand will be nilla wafers and graham cracker crumbs. What should I coat the cake with to help the sand stick? Just BC? Crusting or non-crusting? Would poured ganache work, since I have to get into all the crevices around the towers?
If the crumbs won't stick to the buttercream, I'd try a little thinned down piping gel over the whole surface. I've never tried this, though - I'm just thinking out loud.
I bet ganache would work just fine if you wanted to do that. If it were me, Id probably just use buttercream. The gel is a good idea if the buttercream crusts too fast. As far as getting into crevices, yeah if you pour warm ganache it would probably get in there go od. I like the taste of buttercream better than white ganache, though. So Id just put it in a bag with a small tip and pipe the buttercream into any small crevices and smooth it with a really small spatula. Or even that little metal spatula thing that comes with the wilton gumpaste set, if you have it. That thing is tiny and would probably be good for really tight areas.
Ok, I'm going to go with BC. Now for the topper... what would you do to a 6" round on a sand castle cake? It's for a 40th b-day. I was planning to "write in the sand" on the cake, but I might be able to do a fondant or gumpaste 4-0 and dip it in "sand". I also have some candy melt shells I've been making that I figured I could do something with.
How small are your shell molds? I think a 40 made out of shells would be awesome! I have some really tiny silicone shell molds, but I suppose most candy molds would probably be too big. Hmm... Ive tried drawing in "sand" before. I could never get it very legiable. Plus during delivery I had issues with the vibrations making the sand move and mess up the design. Something large and simple like a 40 might work will though. I did a heart with initials inside and it was kind of small, so that could have been my issue. I would use the shells somewhere for sure. That would be beautiful. I dont think you need to make a 40 out of gumpaste. Just trace it with a popsicle stick, or a gumpaste tool or something.
Great ideas JCE! The shells are kind of large, I think there are 12 on one of those standard mold things, so I don't think I can do much other than scatter them around. The top of the 6" is looking rather bare, though. I could make more crenellations to surround the top. Or maybe I could try writing in the sand on the top and putting shells on the border.
Don`t forget to put some sandy color in the butter cream.
Ta da!
Added cocoa powder the buttercream, just used the Wilton recipe since there would be no refrigeration. Sand is graham cracker crumbs, nilla wafers (food processor) and brown sugar. FYI- brown sugar is difficult to work with over the course of a few days because it gets super clumpy.
No 40 or name. I've never worked with gumpaste or fondant really, so I didn't want to mess with it this time around. I had less than a week's notice so I didn't have time to do too much experiementing since the cake was one big experiement by itself.
The turrets are jumbo cake cones (plain ice cream cones, not made of cake) put end to end and "glued" with white candy melts, vanilla wafer cookies for the crenellations and sugar cones for the pointy roofs.
The shells are white candy melts from a Wilton mold, with a bit of pink swirled into them. It's funny how impressed DH was with the shells, since it's the easiest part. He was totally criticizing my towers (he said he's never seen a castle that looked like that before) and sand, which he said should be lighter because mine looked like construction sand.
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