I am making a beach scene cake for a friend and I need suggestions on what to use to make the sand? Should I just color the icing the color of sand or is there something I can use that would be the texture of sand? I also need directions on how to use blue gelatin as water. Do I need to let the gelatin set for a little while before pouring it into the hole in the cake or do I pour it in right away? Do I need to refrigerate the cake to help the gelatin set and should I put the icing on the cake before or after I pour the gelatin in? As you can tell I've never attempted this before...any suggestions or advise would be greatly appreciated.

For the sand, you could try using a mixture of cinnimon and sugar. As far as the geletin goes... don't know.

Thanks reenie...that's a great idea.

No proble, any time.

I did a pirate cake and used granulated sugar shaken in a ziplock bag with some yellow paste or powdered food colouring - works great! I've never worked with gel though so can advise on that - sorry!

my friend did a beautiful beach themed wedding cake and she used crushed up nilla waffers.

I did a beach cake one time and used graham crackers for the sand - just ground them up in my food processor. For the water, I used piping gel that I had tinted blue. It was perfect for the water. I think that would be much easier than trying to use Jello because there's no need for refrigeration.

using grated cookies work well too..... I've done that......

I made a sand castle cake once, and used brown sugar to do the sand look. Really liked the look of it.

I've never done the jello to make water, but you can also use blue tinted piping gel. So that may be an option as well.

I have a beach cake posted in my photos. I used brown sugar and piping gell tinted blue. It worked great and I made a sand castle w/the brown sugar out of a condiment cup and tip by packing the brown sugar just like you do damp sand.

I made a "LOST" cake for my brother's birthday & used crushed LIFE cereal for the sand. That's his favorite cereal & it looked and tasted great!

As for the jello, I made a "ice skating rink" in an Olympic themed cake for my sis once. I used clear jello (sparkling grape jello made with water instead of seltzer which tasted great!) for the ice skating rink. I made 2-9 x 13 x 2 in. cakes. I frosted the bottom layer then cut the "rink" out of the layer that would go on top. I carefully, placed the top layer. Next, I iced the whole inside of the cut-out & the entire cake. In my case, I also decorated the bottom of the rink with the Nagano Olympic symbol. Oh yeah, I caulked the edges of the corners before icing it just to make sure it was well sealed, then refrigerated the whole cake. After the icing was crusted & chilled, I poured in the prepared jello which I had made the quick-set way and put the cake back in the refrigerator. After the jello finished setting up, I decorated the rest of the cake, just sticking it back in the refrigerator as needed, if the jello began to soften too much. It was really easy! The jello did not smear or mess up any of the decorating in the bottom, either. I used buttercream icing--1/2 crisco & 1/2 butter recipe from Wilton.

I wouldn't just pour in the jello immediately. I'd definitely refrigerate the iced cut-out first.

HTH,
bakersofcakes

P.S. Feel free to PM me with any questions.

I used brown sugar too for my flip flops cake.

my daughter did a cake that used graham cracker, but i don't know how to upload it.

i can't upload it because it's bigger than 800 pixels. any ideas on how to reduce it???

I use raw sugar on my beach themed baby shower cake (in photos). Not sure that I would use that again. Looked great ~ just like sand ~ but it extremely hard little pieces and I am sure biting into them was like biting into sand. I was running out of time and that was all that I had on hand. The cake was for a friend and I asked her what she thought of the cake/sand and she said that everyone loved it and did not hear any negative comments. Just wanted to share this experience. I probably would use something like crushed vanilla wafers next time.

bj

Just use brown sugar for the sand and tint some piping gel for the water! Good luck with it.

I use Hawaian sugar, I bought it the last time I was there, but you can find it in some grocery stores. It is courser than regular brown sugar. It works well for sand

I've used brown sugar or crushed cookies. I have the directions for the jello water..I just have to rememeber which book it's in.

Sounds like bakersofcakes has it down. But I'll try to remember.

Thanks everyone for all the suggestions and directions. I'm going to try to finish the cake tonight and I will post a photo if it turns out okay.

I've never used gelatin for water, but have had wonderful results with tinted pipng gel. I've also used ground almonds for sand effects --looks very realistic (although a bit expensive and not everyone likes them).

Good luck!

crushed toasted coconut works and so does sugar and cinnamon

ooooooooooo........... sugar and cinnamon........

I like the sound of that! yum

bj

I use Domino's brownulated sugar for sand. Here are a couple cakes I've done with sand.

Only one picture came out. Here is the other:

I just asked this question recently, and got the graham cracker/Nilla Wafer answers. I used Nilla Wafers on my cake, and it was perfect! Here's a pic....

Thanks for all the suggestions...everyones ideas were great. Unfortunately, do to some unforseen problems with the fondant decorations I had to X the beach theme and do something a lot simpler. I do, however, plan on doing a beach cake in the future and will use the ideas then. Thanks again for all the help.

I use graham crackers. I've tried the brown sugar and when the cake was cut and served the sugar got into the icing and people didn't really like that taste too much. With the crackers - I've found that the people liked the crunchy effect and flavor it added to the icing - kind of like those ice cream cakes with the chocolate cookies in the middle - yummmmm! See my pix (flip-flop cake).

This was the cake example I used (though it was in the magazine) to get instructions for making a cake with jello "water"...

http://www.womansday.com/article.asp?section_id=13&article_id=5626&page_number=1