Smash Cake Stress

Sometimes in life you just have to figure things out and make it work. 

Since we weren't having an official birthday party I never freaked out about a smash cake. Jack was given the first piece of his Thomas the Train cake.

I knew I would need a smash cake for his professional 1st birthday pictures but I didn't want to spend a lot of money since it was just for him to destroy. We are getting some regular pictures done first and then the last 10 minutes we are going to let him have at the cake. I really wanted just a simple white cake and then I was going to add a cake bunting. Well things seem to never just go the way I plan. 

Since I wanted something so simple I planned to go to the local bakery and have them make something super simple. Mid week I went to the bakery and the woman said she was too busy at the time to talk cake but said she could do it and for me to come by Friday. I take off work early Friday just so I come set this up since they close at 1:00. Well the woman speaks broken English and this whole smash cake trend wasn't something she was too familiar with. I brought out my phone and showed her. She informed me that she couldn't do anything smaller than a 2 layered 8 inch cake. Way too big! 

Plan B was to go to a Walmart an hour away where I was told they had what I was wanting. Saturday morning my mom, Jack, and myself head out. Well they had nothing close to what I needed. 

No plan now so I thought find a bakery to see if they had anything. I found a bakery and all they had was huge cakes. She said she could do a one layer 8 inch cake. It would still be too big for the cake stand so I said no thanks.

Next door to the bakery was a grocery store. I thought I would just go check. I found the perfect sized cake but it was a bunt cake. What's a girl to do? I bought that and another piece of cake. I also bought 2 cans of icing and some piping tips. I pushed that one piece of cake into the middle of the bunt cake to fill the hole. I put that icing into the mixer and added red and yellow food coloring until it turned orange (this pictures looks a little more pink than it is). 

I wasn't sure what to do next because I am not a cake decorator at all. I have zero patience with details. J came in and said "I'll do it!". He is really good at details. He is great at drawing so this is more up his alley. For his first time decorating a cake, it turned out pretty darn good. He had the best time with it. 

Crisis diverted!