What little one's birthday doesn't need a smash cake?
THE perfect way to create an adorable, messy photo-shoot-perfect moment - as baby has their first experience with a little cake all their own! You can absolutely buy one, but they're more customizable (and more affordable) if you make your own. Hence my page-full of these smash cake recipes!
Before I get to the recipes - a few quick smash cake tips!
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Choose a light / smash-able cake recipe 🙂
You'll notice many of my recipes feature lighter or cake-mix-based cake layers. I made a few smash cakes early on that turned out to be too dense for little hands to smash easily. Oops! Lessons learned. If littles can't smash their smash cakes - what's even the point? But for my scratch-cake-layer purists out there, it's not hard to find 6-inch layer cake recipes that will be perfect for your cake. And I've linked to several on the recipe pages below. -
Frosting over fondant 🙂
Fondant can look beautiful, but it's not generally the best-tasting and too much could pose a choking hazard for little mouths. Plus - buttercream or other soft frostings will be much more adorably- messily-smashed! - Watch / test for food allergies 🙂
Often the smash cake is baby's first time trying cake - but it's a good idea to do a test run ahead of time to make sure baby doesn't have an allergy to any of the cake's ingredients (think dairy, wheat, eggs, soy, etc). -
Prep for mess! 🙂
I had a backup outfit for baby when I made her first smash cake - and a good thing too because she was an adorably-messy disaster. 😉 But what I didn't think about was a backup outfit for ME! I had a healthy dose of frosting and cake crumbs all over my shirt by the time I was done cleaning my little one up. I could've used a change of clothes myself had I thought that far ahead. Food for thought! I also might've invested in an extra disposable tablecloth to put on the floor under her high chair.
Whether you're looking for a specific recipe or just browsing for ideas -
here are all my favorite smash cakes on one page!
Click the photos to be taken to the recipe pages! Enjoy!
Don't forget to pin your favorite recipe for later!
