I need to preface this post by saying that I committed the ultimate cake smash mistake – the cardinal sin of cake smashes – by using a chocolate cake. What’s the vendetta against chocolate cake ? Well, typically, when you see a kid of diaper wearing age surrounded by brown smears, your mind typically goes….elsewhere. You get where I’m going with this ? That being said, this was NOT to meant to be a cake smash.
A few days ago, while cuddling my oldest & scrolling through facebook, I stopped to check out a photo of a digger birthday cake I had come across & he absolutely lost his mind over it. Seriously, I’ve never seen him that excited about any food. Not thinking much of it, I told him I’d make him a digger cake someday. WELL. Apparently, “someday” couldn’t come soon enough, because he begged me for a digger cake for 3 days ! Finally, I relented & decided to make the cake for Valentine’s Day; the perfect excuse for a sweet treat. 1 hour & a box of Cocoa Puffs later, the digger cake was born. I liked how it turned out so much that I attempted to take high resolution photos of it. KEYWORD: ATTEMPTED.
Had to get a heart in there for Valentine’s Day !
I still had a backdrop up from a shoot I had done earlier in the day & plopped the cake down to get some photos. I was thinking that I’d get all sorts of fun angles & detail shots, but was only able to get one other photo. ONE. Can you guess why ?
I don’t think I’ve ever seen my child run faster than when he saw that the cake was finished & on the ground. On any other day, I would stop him & avoid a massive explosion of cake right before bedtime, but he was so excited & the cake was his after all, so given the “holiday” circumstances, I let him go for it. It wasn’t long before the little one came speed crawling along to see what was going on…
And so it begins
These two had an absolute blast & it was so much fun watching them have fun. This was my youngest’s first taste of cake ever & he didn’t miss a beat; he dug right in 😉 The best part was that they both used the diggers to scoop up & eat the cake all on their own. Check out the rest of our spontaneous cake smash session & cake details below.
Maxel’s Easy Digger Cake:
- 2 boxes of chocolate fudge cake mix
- 1 box of Cocoa Puffs cereal (smallest size)
- 1 large jar of whipped chocolate icing
- Silver sugar sprinklesI baked 2 cakes; one 5″ round & one 9×13 sheet. While those were in the oven, I used a toy hammer to crush a quart sized ziploc bag filled with Cocoa Puffs to use as my “dirt”. Once the cakes cooled, I added a crumb coat of whipped icing to the sheet cake & sprinkled my crushed Cocoa Puffs to cover it. I then broke the round cake in half (do it with your hands, so it’s less perfect, more crumbly) & covered that in icing & Cocoa Puffs crumbs as well. I used the remaining half of my round cake to crumble onto the sheet cake to add more dirt & layers, added a few whole Cocoa Puffs pieces as “rubble” & sprinkled the silver sugar throughout & inside one of the diggers as “gravel”. Cocoa Puffs pieces were also the outer trim of the cake, which made it look much more put together. The tip of a spoon created my freehand heart & voila ! The easiest cake I’ve ever made !
Happy Valentine’s Day, guys ❤
Photographed at my studio in Cameron, North Carolina.
Crunchy Glamour serves, Sanford, Southern Pines, Pinehurst, Fayetteville, Raleigh & all surrounding areas ! Yes, I travel !