This cake drove me nuts - or maybe bananas! Itwas supposed to be a Beach Monkey themed cake, but my gumpaste monkey broke when I tried to attach the hands. After being reworked so many times and getting almost dry, poor monkey had to be laid to rest. The hut I was carving out of cake to put next to the tree crumbled apart. I had to remove the bottom half of the tree so it wouldn't topple over - it was really heavy. The cake was also supposed to be be covered in fondant, but after 1 batch of MFF and 2 batches of MMF would not work (bad weather last weekend - maybe that had something to do with it), it was covered in the thick buttercream I had made to dam the cakes. The surfboards, beach ball, tree, sand pail and shovel are gumpaste. The sand is crushed up Vanilla Wafers. Our store had the mini multi-color ones, so I used all of the light ones and tossed in a few dark ones. The cake itself was good. I used Macsmom Banana Split Cake recipe.