Aloha, nine: Emilyn's tropical beach cake

Emilyn turned nine, and she wanted the beach — and a whole lot of Stitch.

Deep water to shallow

The sides go from a dark navy at the bottom up through mid blue to a pale aqua at the rim, with a hard-edged band of bright turquoise cutting across near the top where the surf breaks. It reads as water seen side-on: deep down low, shallow up high.

Her name is spelled across the middle in pink fondant letters, sitting right on the line where the pale blue meets the darker water.

Sand at both ends

There is a golden crumb sand banked round the base of the cake and out across the board, with white shells and a conch pressed into it, pink hibiscus, a green turtle and Lilo in her grass skirt down in it. The whole board is covered in the same soft blue as the cake, so the sand looks like it is sitting on shallow water rather than on a plate.

The top of the cake is the island: more sand, more shells, palms, and a hibiscus at the edge, with dried palm fronds fanning up behind everything and a pink fondant 9 out front. Stitch sits in the middle of it.

The trick with a cake like this is that the sand does the same job at the top and the bottom. It ties the board, the sides and the top together so it looks like one beach rather than three separate decorations.

What's inside

Chocolate cake with vanilla buttercream frosting.

Happy 9th birthday, Emilyn

Aloha, nine.