Coolest Pre School Graduation Luau Cake

First of all, I bow to the ladies that went before me! Thank you SO much for all of your ideas and help in making this Pre School Graduation Luau Cake so much fun to make! When the pre-school teacher came to me asking for a cake for 50 people (including 35 children) in a Luau theme I was thrilled because I had already seen some ideas on this site.

I baked four 13×9 sheet cakes, two in white and two in chocolate, starting with boxed cakes but adding extra milk and eggs or a cup of sour cream (to the chocolate) to acquire a more “pound cake” substance. If you don’t have a copy of the Cake Doctor book (deluxe edition by Anne Byrn), then you really should dash out and buy one!!

The cakes were put on top of each other with butter cream and raspberry jam in the white cake and chocolate butter cream in the chocolate cake, then pushed together for one big presentation. Then, let the fun begin.

Taking your ideas, I cut a deep hole out of one end and frosted the whole cake with white homemade butter frosting. While allowing the frosting to get very cold in the fridge, I made the blueberry Jell-O (as per instructions) and also let that partially set. Then I got the cake out and colored some frosting with Wilton’s teal blue which I liberally spread over that half of the cake adding some Swedish fish, gummy sharks and other gummy sea creatures in the hole followed by the Jell-O and returned it all to the fridge over night.

The next day I crushed vanilla wafers, in a blender to get it finer and added another liberal coat of white frosting over the beach end, while that was still wet I added the sand to the beach. Using a little chocolate powder with the white I colored the frosting light brown and covered the sides. All this without using a piping bag or tips, too easy! I did use a number 5 round tip for the surf and seaweed, number 68 leaf tip for the waves and a grass/hair tip to add color and grass around the bottom and tufts on top.

In the meantime, the hut is 2 chocolate cupcakes, left to get cold then stuck together with homemade chocolate butter cream and shaped to look like the hut. Then covered all over with the chocolate butter cream and pretzels stuck onto that for effect! I did push a wooden kebab skewer straight down through the roof for stabilization in the car!

The rest is graham cracker teddy bears, gummy sea creatures and swimming rings, stripes chewing gum (I did warn the teacher of this!!) for beach towels, surf boards and Frisbee, raisins for the fire pit and cocktail umbrellas for shade!

When the teacher came to tell me how this graduation party went she said she found all the children around the table with eyes wide open saying “WOW, look at that, there’s sharks in the sea…. What’s the sea made of?…. Ooooh its Jell-O, I want some of THAT!?”. She then thanked me for remembering the thirty five students because they all wanted a teddy or fish and she was able to oblige!!

So thank you again, we got a lot of praise for this one!