A friend of our's wanted a beach cake for their child's birthday and couldn't find one they liked that include a dolphin in the design so I gave it my best shot and this is what I came up with...
I'm still new to the whole cake decorating thing but I think it turned out pretty good for my first attempt.
Make the Cake
To make your own Ocean Beach Cake you first need to bake your cake and let it cool. Once it is cooled, place it on a serving board and cover the cake in a thin layer of white frosting - "crumb layer"
TIP: Instead of buying a cardboard base for the cakes, I make my own. I cut up diaper boxes or other cardboard boxes a little bigger than the cake size and cover them with Reynold's Aluminum Wrap.
Make your frosting colors. In this case I used blue, yellow, orange, brown, green and grey. I bought vanilla frosting and used food coloring to make the frosting the color I wanted. Since I needed the most blue, I bought a jar of blue vanilla frosting they has in the store to save time on mixing it myself. I usually put my husband on dye duty so he makes the frosting while I make the cake.
TIP: Dump the jar of frosting into a mixing bowl and whip it with a mixer until it becomes smooth. Mixing the frosting makes it easier to work with, easier to spread on the cake and it gives you a little more frosting than you had before.
Decorate the Cake
You can decorate the cake however you want but here is how I decided to decorate the cake. If you haven't already, gently frost your cake with white frosting- the crumb layer.
1. Create the Water
Add the blue frosting in the middle of the cake and make it as smooth as you can. It's ok if it's not perfect because it will give it the effect of waves.
2. Add a yellow sun.
3. Create the Sunset
Add blobs of yellow and orange frosting randomly where you want your sunset to be. Use the back of a flat, plastic, spatula to smooth and blend the yellow and orange frosting together. Don't over blend it or it will all become one color.
4. Create the Sand
Smash a couple Graham Cracker in a ziplock bag or food processor and sprinkle them on the bottom of the cake below the blue frosting to make it look like sand. Three Graham Crackers should be enough.
5. Make a Palm Tree
Make a Palm Tree or two with the Brown and Green frosting. I used a #12 tip for the tree base and a #5 tip for the palm leaves.
Make a Palm Tree or two with the Brown and Green frosting. I used a #12 tip for the tree base and a #5 tip for the palm leaves.
6. Add a Dolphin
I hand frosted the dolphin using a #5 tip.
7. Add the Boarder
Add a sand/water separator to look like crashing waves and words to the cake if you want using any frosting tip you want. I used a #22 tip for the boarder and a #5 for the sand/water separator and the words.
I'm still working on how to write better on cakes, plus the frosting wasn't coming out right but other than that I think the cake turned out pretty well and the family was very satisfied! Decorate the cake however you prefer; you can add birds to the sky or sea creatures in the water or on the sand, just make sure you leave room for words and candles. Hopefully this tutorial comes in handy for at least creating a sunset. Feel free to comment with how alternative ways you can make the sunset or sand.
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