Whether it’s the last days of summer, or the season is just beginning, a unique sand castle cake is appropriate for any celebration. Summer birthdays, anniversaries, or parties with friends are all reasons to make a sand castle cake. You don’t have to be a cake artist to create the easy sand castle that will have friends and family astonished. Not only is the cake delicious but it really looks just like a sand castle! Don’t worry about having to spend a lot of money to make the cake; you’ll see that it’s not costly at all.
If you have different sizes of round cake pans you can use three sizes: an 8″, a 5.5″ and a 3.5. Or, you can make three 8″ cakes and cut two of them down to the 5.5″ and 3.5″ cakes. Another choice is to make an 8″ round cake, and a 9″ square cake, then cut the square cake into the two smaller circular cakes you need. You can use a homemade cake or a boxed cake but decide on how you want the cake to look when cut. Since the cake itself will look like a sand castle a dark chocolate cake or strawberry flavored cake might not be ideal because of the colors of the cakes. Some good choices include a yellow cake or even a spice cake.
After baking, cooling and cutting two of the cakes down to size you’ll start stacking the cakes. Instead of stacking them how most cakes are stacked, with each cake being centered on top of the previous cake, you’ll do something a little different. Place the largest cake on the desired platter then place the next largest cake on top of it. Rather than center it position the cake so that it’s close to the edge of the large cake. Now place the smaller cake on top of the center one, doing the same thing, and positioning the small cake next to the edge so that one side of the stacked cakes is nearly straight up and down and the other side of the cake has a stair step effect.
Frost the entire cake with white icing. Now you have a couple of choices for making the cake look sandy. One is to pat toasted coconut all over the cake. Toasted coconut is brown and will easily give the cake the sandy look while being delicious at the same time. Another choice is to crush 12 ounces of sugar wafers and pat them onto the cake. Whichever you decide on, completely cover the cake in the “sand”, then sprinkle some of the sand around on the platter.
Use graham cracker sticks to add sandy embellishments to the castle cake. Turn the cake so that the flat side of the tiers is facing away from you and the stair step side is facing you. Position two whole graham crackers, side-by-side, on the front of the second cake to make the doors to the castle. Snap some more of the graham cracker sticks in half and begin using them to go around the edge of the three cakes. Position them so that the broken ends are in the frosting and so they go nearly all the way around the three cakes. However, as you get to the backside of the cake you can taper off and stop adding the sand stones. Leave a small gap between each graham cracker stick half to create the best effect.
Use some flat-bottom ice cream cones, and some pointed cones to make the cake look more like a sand castle. If the flat-bottom cones are available in small and larger ones in your town purchase a box of each. If not, just use the large ones. Use a little frosting and place it on one of the flat-bottom cones. Stand it next to the large cake, pushing it up against the cake, but setting it on the tray itself. Set this cone to the left of the cake. Go up to the second tier, add a little frosting, and position it on that cake. It should be approximately in the same location as the first cone, but one step higher. Place the third cone on top of the cake, securing it with some frosting. Now go back down the tiers, placing a cone on the second cake, then one on top of the bottom cake, off to the side.
Each flat-bottom cone will now get a pointed cone. Turn a pointed cone upside-down and place it inside the opening of one of the flat-bottom cones. Do this to each of the cones to make the points of the castle. It’s a nice touch to finish the creation by sprinkling some candy rocks and candy seashells around on the tray. The minute your guests see the magnificent cake they’ll gasp in awe and then they’ll dig in! It’ll be one of the nicest sand castles you’ve ever made!
