I want to put brown sugar around the base of a cake so that it looks like sand, what is the best way to hold it down. Thank you.

I would use buttercream. you dont want anything water based or it might dissolve the sugar crystals and leave you with a sticky mess!

Having said that i've never actually used buttercream before...it's just what i would do!

I have done this a few times and I always use a pastry brush and put some piping gel on the cake board (or other surface) that I want the sugar to stick too and then just sprinkled the sugar onto the piping gel. Worked great!

If you use piping gel you had better make it as thin a coating a possible. Brn sug melts VERY easily into a sticky gooey mess
A thin coating of fresh b'cream is probably the best to make it stick.

Crushed graham cracker crumbs look like sand too! And they don't melt.

If I was to try sugar on the board, I would probably try egg white brushed very lightly, wait until it is almost dry at sticky stage, then sprinkle sugar over. I would test this out first to see how it goes.?
Good luck

I agree with using crushed graham crackers over brown sugar. When you cut the cake, the brown sugar, to me, would be WAY too sweet if it made it onto the cake plate. I used this method on my flip flop cake, adhering it to the cake board with just a light smear of buttercream. HTH

http://cakecentral.com/gallery/956863

I prefer using Graham crumbs over B sugar as well. I usually use clear piping gel but I just did a beach themed cake a couple of weeks ago and had run out of gel. So in a pinch I added extra water to royal icing until it was almost clear but still sticky. I brushed that on the board and sprinkled on the crumbs. It worked great, I was very happy with the outcome and will use this method again since I always have RI on hand.