Nothing says summer like the beach, but a beach cake with just sand and water can be boring. Dress up your cake with seashells and palm trees!
Seashells
You can make seashells with Candy Melts® or fondant using our Seashells Candy Mold or our new Sea Life Fondant and Gum Paste Mold. Both molds are very versatile; you can use Candy Melts® or fondant in both molds.
You can marbelize the shells using our marbelizing candy technique or make your seashells more personal by marbelizing them more individually. Using a parchment bag, pipe a small amount of melted orange candy randomly in the mold, then pipe a small amount of white over it. You could also use peanut butter or light cocoa Candy Melts® for different colors. Looking through the bottom of the mold, use a toothpick to swirl the colors together until you get the desired look. Fill the rest of the mold with white candy and refrigerate until set. This same method can be done in the fondant mold, but keep in mind you can’t see through it.
Make fondant seashells using the same technique shown in our Serenity by the Sea Castle Cake or our Sea Life All Around Cake using Wilton’s candy mold or Sea Life Fondant and Gum Paste Mold. Add Pearl Dust™ to give your shells a shine, either by using white pearl dust or using same colored pearl dust as your fondant. For example, the pink fondant starfish can be dusted with pink pearl dust for a brighter fun look. You can also use pearl dust to accent details on shells from fondant mold.
Palm Trees
To make leaves, you can use fondant with gum-tex, gum paste, spearmint leaves or taffy. I have used all of these, depending on my project and the weather.
To make palm trees, you can follow the Palm Tree Technique on our website. Depending on the size of the tree, I select an appropriate size cutter from the Leaf Cut-Outs™ and the follow the decorating technique steps on Wilton’s website.
For smaller trees you can use taffy: simply flatten by hand or roll out with a fondant roller and follow the same steps for fondant leaves. Attach the leaves to the pretzel with melted candy.
I have also used the leaf from our Baroque Fondant/Gum paste mold to make a small palm tree. Let dry overnight in a large forming cup and attach to a pretzel with green Candy Melts® or royal icing.
Using the same technique as listed on our website, you can use jelly spearmint leaves instead of fondant like in our Happy Habitat Cookies and Candy project. If you would like to make smaller trees, use the same technique but don’t roll out spearmint leaves. Instead, simply cut lengthwise in thirds and coat in granulated sugar. You can use royal icing to attach the leaves to pretzel rods or use green Candy Melts® to attach leaves to tree, which is a great time-saver (weather permitting).
I think pretzel rods are the best for making tree trunks because of their structure – and they taste good! You can also make trunks out of long (2 3/4″) chocolate nougat candies, but you need to insert lollipop sticks in the nougat to help hold up the trunk and leaves.
To make spikes on the trunk, I used a small pair of scissors and cut random little slits in the nougat. You can also cut a strip of fondant, punch the side of the strip with our grass punch, and wrap the fondant around the pretzel, attaching it with icing. This method is best with large pretzel rods.
Make a big splash at your next party with a beach-themed cake. To learn more about creating sand and water for your tropical cake, please read my blog post, Beach Cake Techniques: Sand and Surf.
