Shovelin' Sand Cake Tower

Yep, that's a cake! Here's the shovelin' sand cake I made today...I saw some cupcakes similar to this in the book Little Cakes from the Whimsical Bakehouse and I thought it would make an adorable cake. So I bought this sandpail, shovel, and sifter thing at Wal-Mart today and here it is! When I shared what I was doing with a friend, she said people have done this before, which doesn't surprise me. There are people out there who are a lot more creative than me! I used a 6X4 inch cake pan and cut the edges to fit the sandpail. I put a thin layer of vanilla buttercream frosting on top so the topping would stick. The "sand" is crumbled cupcake, which I saw in the book, too. Here's what the cover looks like:

I would HIGHLY recommend this book...the ideas in it are adorable! I only got a chance at the bookstore to peek in it, but it was enough to catch inspiration for this cake tower (shown below)! They have a cute website at http://www.whimsicalbakehouse.com/.

Here's a little sour patch kid with his "lifesaver!" This cupcake was my idea, but I bet someone has thought of this before, too. I used mirengue frosting with blue food coloring (see next post for the recipe) and used the back of a spoon to make the waves. Sour patch kids are my fave candy, so I thought to use them right away. I originally had some circular mini-pretzels picked out for the life preserver, but then I realized Lifesavers would be perfect! I LOVE going down the candy aisle, there are so many things you can use to decorate!


I didn't get a close look at the cupcakes in the book, so I tried this. I made the shovel from Airheads and a lollipop stick. Just use scissors to cut the pieces. I cut about an inch off of the Airhead and curved it to look like a shovel. I also cut the corners off of the bottom to round them a little. The handle on the shovel was a little difficult...I rolled the Airhead with a rolling pin to flatten it and cut out the handle piece. I cut out the middle so it looked like a handle. Then I cut out a thin piece to stick to the back of the shovel handle to make the handle stay on. The pail's handle is cut from Airheads Extremes.

Below is an example of the cupcake with the nut cup colored with a marker to make it look more like a pail. My idea was to have a whole cupcake tower ready with the pails decorated by the time my guests arrived, but as usual, baking took longer than expected!

Here's another idea for beach cupcakes. I just used the mirengue frosting and colored goldfish crackers.