Make // Homemade Smash Cake

Since I ended up planning Skylar’s sky themed first birthday party waaaaay late, like less than a week before his actual birthday (and party), the bakeries that I usually like to use couldn’t make a cake for us. What’s a mama to do?! Make her own. I really wanted to have some fun smash cake photos, so along with making the party cake I knew I needed to make a smash cake as well. But no need to worry, it’s actually pretty easy!

I’m clearly not a professional and not flawless with the icing (and I bought fondant but returned it because I was just too intimidated to try), but the vision in my head came to life pretty well in this sky smash cake. So here it goes friends, the second post in our birthday series this week!

Since it seems like most smash cakes end up more smashed and smeared than eaten, a simple box cake is perfect. I used one box of cake mix, and one tub of white icing that I tinted blue with food coloring.

You can use mini cake pans or Corningware dishes about the same size, then just prepare the cake according to box directions and bake.

Once cooked and cooled, slice the rounded tops off with a sharp knife to give each cake a flat top. Originally I planned to make  a three tiered cake, but once I had them all prepared, it just seemed too tall and decided on two tiers.

To finish, add a little frosting between each cake layer as you stack. Then just spread frosting over top! Usually, it’s preferred to spread a thin layer of frosting, called a crumb coat, and then go back over with a thicker coat of frosting. Whichever way you do it, just get some frosting on, it’ll all be smashed around soon enough anyway.

Since we had quite a bit of cake mix left, the kids and I happily used it up for some cupcakes.

To garnish for a sky cake, I used sugar paper and cut out clouds… so easy! And since we had a cotton candy machine for the party, we used blue whips of spun sugared cotton candy as our topper (which I ended up removing before the photos because we found out Skye doesn’t really like cotton candy, haha!).

We had so much fun with this cake and party! And of course, I had fun just watching this little one who somehow grew to be a year old right under my nose. 

Don’t miss the first post in our birthday series this week, Confetti Popcorn + Free Popcorn Box Printable.