I'm making a sandal cake for a lua this weekend and to get some additional servings, I am using the bottom of the giant cupcake pan as a pile of sand to represent the beginning stage of a sandcastle. I will need to cover the cake with something that looks like sand but is tasty. I've read that some people use brown sugar (don't want to do that for taste purposes) and some use crushed nilla wafers - how does this taste? I plan to apply buttercream and then the "sand" on top of that. Any suggestions?

I just did my pirate cake last weekend and used nilla wafers. they taste great because of their mild flavor mixing well with my buttercream. I didn't use brown sugar because I thought it might start absorbing moisture from the buttercream and turn liquid...

I tried sand for the first time recently too. I used cinnamon graham crackers mixed with brown sugar. I got the idea from TLC's Ultimate Cakes. Looks great and had a great taste too HTH's

I put a mix of brown sugar, graham crackers and then add some colored yellow sanding sugar. You can eat the stuff like it is, its so yummy!

For both of these I used vanilla cake crumbs. I just dried the cake a bit in the oven and ran it thru my food processor. Just like making bread crumbs.

http://lamaisondesgateaux.blogspot.com/2011/05/bonne-fete-dan.html

http://lamaisondesgateaux.blogspot.com/2011/05/bonne-fete-alex.html

I use gram cracker crumbs so easy to buy the box
of already crushed crumbs to use

I use Rice Chex and brown sugar together and it turns out pretty good.

I used white sugar sprinkles, placed in a zipper bag and added a few drops of brown ameri-color then shook it up. I added more until I like the color. HTH

I just watched an episode of Fabulous Cakes and to make sand the baker left some white cake scrapes out overnight. In the morning he crumbled the scrapes, sifted them and added a bit of brown sugar.

I either use cake scrapes mixed with brown sugar...or I do a mixture of brown sugar and graham cracker crumbs.

hi, i use crush up cinnamon toast crunch cereal

I think graham cracker crumbs work better. They're so much less sweet than any of the sugars you can use. Not grainy and to me they become part of the taste of the cake...they don't detract from it.

Thanks for all the tips!

Crushed rice krispies with a touch of brown sugar.