The Conclusion of Smash Cake
Continuing from before, I’ve documented the making of the smash cake and its inevitable demise.
Since I was doing all of this primarily for photos, I saved myself the trouble and went with regular boxed cake mix- specifically Betty Crocker’s Super Moist yellow cake mix, which is good stuff. I had enough batter left over for 7 cupcakes and our friends ate them all up.
I feel like if a baby is going to destroy a cake, it’s probably better if it’s small cake. I used a 6” round silicone mold I got while I was living in Tokyo. Since I only have one, I baked each layer one at a time. Thankfully I’ve seen enough seasons of The Great British Bake Off on Netflix to remember to grease the pan, so they popped out nicely.
You can get the cake stand from Target’s Spritz line of party supplies. It’s simple and straightforward and holds 7-8” cakes. The best part is it’s only $7!! I freaking love Target.
After waiting for the cakes to cool, I carefully cut the rounded tops off each cake layer to get them nice and flat. Then I slathered frosting on them and made a cake sandwich.
For the frosting, I followed a generic vanilla buttercream recipe I found online. I recommend Serious Eats’ guide on How to Crumb-Coat a Cake. After sealing in the crumbs, I popped it in the fridge to harden for about 30 minutes. It made frosting the rest of it much easier. I don’t have a turntable cake stand, but I’ll definitely get one should I ever try this again!
Crumb-coating!
I also don’t have pretty cake boards, so I placed the cake on some tissue paper, topped it with the fondant crown, and all done!
Yay it turned out cute! And so totally going to get destroyed! So I took a bunch of pictures to try and preserve the memory of my efforts. I even went all Pinterest and DIY’d a backdrop: got a white bed sheet, star garlands, and threw in some balloons and Christmas lights. Aside from the big #1 balloon, most of this was actually leftover baby shower decorations.
DIY backdrop. Not too shabby, right? LOL
With everything finally all set up, it was time to shoot! …but Leon was completely uninterested in the cake. Dude, Mom just wants to get some pictures!
Took some coaxing from Dad…
…
(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻ TABLEFLIP
“THIS IS WHAT I THINK ABOUT YOUR CAKE”
welp
In the end, after all that time and effort, it wasn’t so much a cake smash but a cake flip. Things didn’t quite turn out how I imagined, but I learned a valuable lesson: life can’t be staged. Especially not with babies. But hey, I got some hilarious and memorable pictures, sooo I’m pretty satisfied.