Beach Vacation Cake

Setting our clocks up an hour this past weekend and the nearly 70 degree weather we experienced the other day has given me the slightest glimpse of warm, sunny weather. I am totally ready for the warm weather now and to get you in the mood I thought I'd present to you a picture of the beach themed cake I made last summer. Yes, you read that correctly, I have had the picture and this post in mind since last July. My blog was not up and running until late fall/early winter and by that time a beach themed cake may have seemed seasonably inappropriate during the holidays.

I started with 2 cooled chocolate cakes baked in a 9x13-inch cake pan. You could make a smaller cake but remember that will leave you with less room to work with your decorations. I used a cake slicer to shave off the top of one cake to make it level. A filling of your choice can be added to this layer before placing the other cake on top. Be sure to not use too much filling and keep it away from the very edge. You probably won't need as much as you would think so be careful and be sure level it off as much as possible so your cake is not tilted. Fruit preserves or additional icing make for a good filling between your layers. Sometimes, it helps to put the cake in the fridge for a bit before you frost it as it results in less crumbs.

As far as the top layer I did not find it necessary to shave off the very top with a cake leveler but if your cake  baked with large peak or dome on top then you can do it. In that case, cut as cleanly as possible for minimal crumbs and be more gentle when applying the icing. Again, chilling the cake can help with that.

This is where you can get creative. Use white frosting over the entire cake. On one half, gently press graham cracker crumbs onto the side and top of the cake for the "sand" (that's some tasty sand right there). For the other, you will need to stir together some clear decorating gel and blue paste food coloring; this is your "water". Spread over the other half of the cake including the sides. Use just enough to look like water and cover the cake. Too much will give you goopy-ness (not a word but you get the idea).

So before we even get into the decorations, here are some basics you will need. I am not getting into specifics because the amount you will need will depend on the size of your cake:

-Cake of your choice, the bigger the better
-Home made or store bought white frosting
-Graham cracker crumbs
-Clear decorating gel (I used Wilton brand)
-Blue paste/gel food coloring

Once you have the basics, you can get creative with your decorations. I was able to find beach themed cake toppers for a few of my decorations but they don't necessarily have to be made to decorate a cake. Just remember to take them off before digging in. For the beach towel, I used AirHeads Xtremes which are basically a sour fruit roll up; unappetizing in my opinion but it worked. If you have gummy rings they would make a great inner tube or a gumball could be used as a beach ball.

I could go on and on about how to decorate a beach cake because it really does offer a lot of opportunity to get creative, but I will spare you another paragraph of rambling. So moving on, the picture below is the cake I made for my dads birthday last year. We celebrated it while visiting our beach house so I felt this cake was appropriate.