First Birthdays · Cake Trends · Strong Feelings
Cake Smashing: Cute Milestone Or Cake Crime?
In today’s edition of “Things That Make No Sense”, people are buying cakes specifically to obliterate them for the gram. Because nothing says “happy first birthday” quite like wasting a perfectly good cake while a baby looks mildly confused under a cloud of buttercream.
For real, it is a thing. It is called a cake smash. And if you are anything like me, the thought of a celebration cake being smashed, smooshed, squished and generally sacrificed for content is pretty horrifying.
Nobody wants to own up to inventing this mess, probably because they know deep down it is ridiculous. But somehow, over the last decade, cake smashing for baby birthdays has become a first birthday photoshoot trend in the US, and it is gaining ground here in the UK too.
A smash cake is a small cake made for a baby, usually on their first birthday, to prod, grab, smear and destroy during a photoshoot. It can make cute pictures, yes. It can also be wasteful, sticky, stressful and a tiny bit absurd.
What Is A Smash Cake?
A smash cake is a cake made and bought specifically so a one-year-old can wreak havoc on it. The idea is simple: put the cake in front of the baby, wait for them to plunge their tiny hands into the frosting, then photograph the glorious chaos.
The result is meant to be delightfully cute: baby with frosting on cheeks, sponge in fists, parents squealing nearby, everyone pretending this is completely normal human behaviour.
And look, I do understand the logic. Babies are adorable. Cake is adorable. Messy babies with cake are, allegedly, Instagram gold. But there is something deeply unhinged about baking a cake with the sole intention of destroying it.
Professional photographers now offer cake smash packages to capture a baby’s first big encounter with refined sugar. Forget first steps. Forget first words. Apparently, the real milestone is watching your child go feral on a sponge.
Cake Is For Eating, Not Pulverising
Cake is for eating. Not for pulverising. Not for content. Not for creating a buttercream crime scene that needs its own clean-up package.
Baby not into cake? Just bring cake to baby. Pic via themommyproject.com
There is no denying that cute babies and cute cakes can make a very sweet photo. I am not immune. I have eyes. I have a heart. I also have a fairly intense emotional attachment to cake being eaten rather than obliterated.
The oddest part is that lots of babies are not even that into it. Some stare suspiciously. Some cry. Some pat the frosting once and immediately regret every life choice that led them there. And then the adults start encouraging the smash because the photo needs to happen.
I am not entirely sure when engineering Pinterest-worthy scenes of a child destroying dessert became a normal part of turning one, but here we are.
Maybe, just maybe, a cupcake could do the job. Mash one cupcake. Take the picture. Keep the other eleven intact for actual humans to eat. Radical, I know.
The Better First Birthday Cake Idea
Instead of buying a cake purely for destruction, choose a cake that both baby and guests can enjoy. You can still give your little one a slice, let them get messy, take the adorable photos and then, crucially, serve the rest of the cake to people who want to eat it.
Number birthday cake by Anges de Sucre
For a first birthday, our number one birthday cake makes much more sense. It still feels playful, colourful and properly celebratory, but it is not designed to be a disposable prop.
Our vanilla sponge is sandwiched and frosted with smooth, silky vanilla Swiss meringue buttercream, glazed with Belgian chocolate drip and decorated with a pastel buttercream piped mosaic. Swirly, whirly, florally and far too nice to be launched into the carpet.
Put a slice of this in front of your baby and I am fairly confident you will get the same cute messy cake pictures, without sacrificing an entire cake to the social media gods.
Give the baby a slice, not the whole cake. You still get the frosting face, the sticky fingers and the adorable photos, while everyone else gets to enjoy the birthday cake like civilisation intended.
So, Is Cake Smashing The Dumbest Cake Trend Ever?
I will be generous and say this: the pictures can be cute. First birthdays are emotional. Parents want a memory. Babies covered in icing are objectively funny.
But as a cake person, I cannot fully get behind a trend built around destroying something beautifully baked and frosted. Ingredients, time, skill and deliciousness all went into that cake. Watching it get flattened for content feels, frankly, like a tiny tragedy in buttercream form.
So yes, I understand the cake smash. I simply do not support full cake annihilation when a slice would do the job perfectly well.
If your little one’s first birthday must involve cake, as it should, choose something worth eating. Smashing is for piñatas, not dessert.
Browse our number cakes and birthday cakes for first birthday celebrations that still give you the gorgeous photos, without wasting the cake.
Love,
Reshmi xoxo
I want to help out if I can. Cake smash for a one year old birthday was not for photos. My family has been doing it for decades. We bought a small cake for the birthday baby and then a bigger cake for everyone else. The point was to let the baby have their very own cake to explore. Maybe someone took a picture of a baby destroying their cake and it just took off.
Yes, even smashing cake in your spouses face at a wedding is incredibly tacky, and no o e finds it funny- just awkward forced laughter.
Children are disgusting g when they eat to begin with, no one wants to see your kid covered in food- As for the one who shared the cake that was remaining after their kid mailed it- even more disgusting. Also, the person who was going to share the small cake with another young relatives- it’s not that kids birthday, set boundaries.
It’s one thing if the small cake is made of baby friendly ingredients, but even then you don’t need to have the kid make a we’re k of it.
Here is a fun fact- no one wants to be at your babies birthday party except you and its grandparents. Small Children’s birthday parties are a horror for adults.
Learn some etiquette
Nope, the dumbest trend ever is “gender reveal” that involves blowing stuff up and injuring or even killing people. Smash cake is way down the list.
This is a relatively old tradition. I had a smash cake for my first birthday and I’m 30-years-old, and I’ll do the same for my daughter when she turns one. It’s fun, it hurts no one (especially you), so why dump all over it? I imagine you’re only learning of this because you probably don’t get very many party invites with your sparkling personality. Oof.
I made two cakes for my kiddo. His first birthday was his first time having refined sugar and it took him a solid 15 minutes to touch it. We didn’t coax him. The day was about him though.
The day was about him. It was for his first birthday alone and so we didn’t set any food wasting precedent and the ingredients were extra so there was no attack on global hunger to make his cake.
I find things like gender reveals to be ridiculous, but think it’s nice to have traditions. It’s nice when the kids to grow up to look at their photo album and see we did something extra special for their first birthday. I was one of ten kids (pre-social media 80’s) so there were very few pics of my as a little and I love the lone cake pic from my first birthday,
YES Katheryn Patiño Rojas, some people are “boring”. These who do not like showing off and wasting food when half a word outside your fancy manor starving to death. It’s not about your stupid "manners"of rich emos, it’s about respect for food and life together. The same with big fancy parties for 1y old. Kids starting understand parties and fun around 3-4y old, before the small family party is enough, but of course not for these who need to show the all world how fancy-shmancy they are (and get tons of presents, offering usually at this party the possibility of taking the picture of the dirty baby…)
Seems that these parents were NEVER hungry. Never seen or met hungry or starving person (really???) Teaching kid from the very beginning that food , especially GOOD food can be simply thrown into a garbage? I found this only in America, never heard of it before and I’m not surprise why. Wise people respect food. And it’s not truth that these cakes are “small and of uncomplicated in design”. Usually the bigger, the better, for big “showing off” how fancy the parents are, how expensive cake they can afford (very rarely the cake is made by parent)… Someone said that kids often ate the cake. Of course they do, my kids also did. Only they ate this small first piece they got, not wasted all cake. Sad.
Don’t mind me, I’m just here for the spicy comments.
I agree this is disgusting. Like you spend money just to destroy the cake and make a big mess out if it. Wasting food is a crime to me.
As a baker a smash cake doesn’t bother me at all. Either way it’s getting eaten and destroyed why does it matter? I have no problem making a mini cake to get smashed, small cakes are adorable. Sounds like your just trying to promote yourself. Get over it.