Ariel Sits on the Beach Birthday Cake 40

by Kristy Rowe
(Washington, MO)

Ariel Sits on the Beach

I made this Ariel cake for my daughter Kaylie's fifth birthday.

I first made a 9x13 cake in a glass cake pan. I cut the cake in half and used the discarded cake to create a hill on the cake left in the pan. I used graham crackers (crushed very fine with a rolling pin) as the sand, and the rocks are milk chocolate rock candy. For the "ocean" part of the cake, I used blue gelatin.

Here are the directions for the gelatin:
1 package (3 ounces) berry blue gelatin
3/4 cup boiling water
1/2 cup cold water
Ice cubes

In a small bowl, dissolve gelatin in boiling water. Pour cold water into a 2-cup measuring cup; add enough ice cubes to measure 1-1/4 cups. Add to gelatin; stir until slightly thickened. Discard any remaining ice. Refrigerate for 30 minutes or until soft-set. Slowly pour gelatin into other half of cake pan.

For Ariel's tail, I used pre-made fondant that I shaped around the doll's plastic wrap covered legs. I then painted on green food coloring. I would, however, recommend coloring the fondant beforehand with fondant coloring if you don't want to get messy because the regular food coloring never dries on the fondant. I also used a luster dust with the food coloring to make the tail shiny.

My daughter and her friends really enjoyed eating the gelatin with the cake. Eating "water" with "sand cake" was a fun change from just cake and ice cream.