Welcome to the Cake Decorators Q&A

Just checking if it would be ok to use light brown sugar for this? Is there any advantage to using castor sugar and colouring it? Does the sugar go damp on top of the sugar paste? Any comments on this would be welcome. Thanks.

Hi dianne

Light brown sugar is good, it has a similar density, movement and texture as sand and the colour is very representative.
If you don’t want to use sugar at all you could use crushed biscuits. I usually use yummy shortbread which I bake at home because I like it to be slightly darker than shop bought. I have also used digestives and oaties. Almond meal makes good looking sand too, however care needs to be taken when using nuts in case of nut allergies. A little edible gold lustre can be used to add sparkle to the made ‘sand’.
I can’t really see any advantage of colouring up caster sugar, if you prefer to use caster sugar you could get golden caster instead of the regular. I don’t think all the sugar would go damp, perhaps just the layer closest to the cake. Depends really how long in terms of days it will be laying on the cake. It might harden from moisture in the air. I prefer using biscuit sand because it can be completely eaten with the cake whereas sugar gets scraped off and wasted. Hope you didn’t mind me making alternative suggestions.

Thanks a lot for the advice. Its good to have different options.