Beach Cake

I've been busy working on a baby quilt for the past 2 days. I should finish up later today, but in the meantime, I thought I'd share a few details about the fun beachy "sand" cake we did for my daughters' birthday party. 

I was in such a hurry at the last hour before the party started that I didn't have time to take better pictures. So sorry about the slightly out of focus hammock. 

To make things simple, I used a yellow mix for the cake. You might notice that there are 3 layers. I'd planned to make it a regular 2-layer cake, but Ginger ate one of the first layers as it was cooling on the stove. If you want to know how I reacted, imagine the dad in A Christmas Story after he finds the neighbor's hound dogs eating the turkey.

At least she didn't chow down after the cake was decorated. That would have been a total disaster. 

I was very close to just driving to Pick 'n Save and buying a sheet cake, but I was very determined to make this beach scene cake. And because the cake was from a box, it wasn't all that hard to just bake 2 more layers. 

After the layers were completely cooled, I frosted the cake with my go to vanilla cream frosting: 

1/2 cup butter, softened

3 cups sifted powdered sugar

4 tablespoons cream (add more if needed)

2 tablespoons vanilla

Beat the butter and sugar until fluffy and then add the cream a little at a time. Add the vanilla and continue beating until completely blended. 

Frost in between the layers and all around the outside of the cake. 

The "sand" layer sticks to the vanilla cream. I followed Ruth's delicious recipe for that. I spooned the sand over the top and then pressed it into the sides with my hands. 

I wanted to add a little beach scene on top, so I made some palm trees out of paper straws and construction paper. Then I hung a hammock made out of a fabric scrap, toothpicks and baker's twine. 

 Hot glue the palm fronds to one end of the straw. 

 Glue the fabric to the twine and add another piece of fabric on the back. 

 Glue on the cut toothpicks. 

 Tie the bakers twine on either end of the hammock. If I did this again, I would probably cut all but one strand of twine beyond the knot to make it look a little less bulky. 

 Glue the hammock to the straw trunks and stick in the cake. 

The kids loved it. They oohed and aahed over the hammock and debated whether or not that was real sand on there. And then they gobbled it up.