First Birthdays · Cake Trends · 2019 Archive
Cake Smashing: Cute Milestone Or Cake Crime?
Archive note: This opinion piece was written in 2019, when cake-smash photoshoots were gaining visibility in our feed. The trend comments below describe that period. The linked Pastel Swirl Number Cake is still an active current product, but the argument is preserved as a 2019 rant rather than a statement about today's market.
People were 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.
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. It can also be wasteful, sticky and a tiny bit absurd.
Cake Is For Eating
I understand why parents like the pictures. Babies are adorable. Cake is adorable. Messy babies with cake are undeniably funny. I simply object to sacrificing an entire cake when a slice can achieve exactly the same buttercream-on-cheeks result.
My 2019 compromise was: give the baby a slice, take the photographs, then let everybody else eat the birthday cake like civilisation intended.
A Better First-Birthday Cake
Our current Pastel Swirl Number Cake makes the age part of the design and is intended to be eaten, which already puts it ahead in my very biased ranking system. You can also browse our current number cakes and birthday cakes.
So, Was Cake Smashing The Dumbest Cake Trend Ever?
My answer in 2019 was: possibly. The photographs can be cute, but a beautifully made cake contains ingredients, time and skill. Watching the whole thing get flattened for content still feels like a tiny buttercream tragedy.
Love,
Reshmi xoxo
Earlier in the archive: Fault Line Cake Recipe and Tutorial
Later in the archive: Birthday Cake Trends 2020
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.