Hi Kristin:

Another idea might be to bake their favorite cake flavor in a flat sheet cake. To decorate it you might frost the entire cake once, and then outline the shape of Latin America on the top of the cake.

You might frost the entire cake with white icing. I would make the country brown/chocolate (as in soil). You could also use the chocolate icing and chocolate candies to show significant mountain ranges, if you wish.

After completing the form of Latin America, use blue piping gel to cover the remaining white icing. The blue piping gel will give the idea of ocean. Do not worry about putting the blue gel on evenly... the varied thickness of the gel will result in giving the impression of deeper and shallower water. (hee hee hee). You can usually find various colors of piping gel in the cake decorating section of larger grocery stores. The gel is goes on shiny and remains shiny on the cake.

Also, after the gel is applied, you can use a toothpick or skewer to make waves. Simply dip the skewer thru the gel--at an angle--into the white frosting and carefully pull some white frosting over the gel. Voila, you have white caps. You could even "submerge" some little jellybelly fishies in the water. Or, you could use the fish around the bottom of the cake to finish it off.

Hope this helps. Kelly