First Birthday Smash Cake

1st Birthday Smash Cake!

Back before I was pregnant, I loved being on Pinterest every now and then, pinning all kinds of cute stuff like clothes and kittens. When I got pregnant, Pinterest became life! I have hundreds of pins on my board ‘Bun in the Oven’ that range from pregnancy process, diet, baby facts, labor, birth, first baby years, etc.

Some of the many pins on my board are about first birthday smash cake photo sessions.

If you are not familiar with the smash cake concept, it is usually a themed, mini photo session with a healthy, homemade mini cake for a one-year-old to eat, and yes you guessed it, to smash.

If that doesn’t paint you a picture, just check out how adorable our photos came out!

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But it wasn’t all easy breezy. Most of my time was occupied trying to find healthy alternative cake recipes. I tried one prior to the one pictured, and it didn’t live up to my expectations.

After the photoshoot, I realized all that stressing about making the perfect healthy cake was virtually for nothing. I did want my 12-month old eating something that wasn’t riddled with sugars and all kinds of other unnecessary ingredients. But, as I threw away 95% of this healthy cake I had researched for weeks and made from scratch into the trash, I realized that if I had given him a store bought cake or made a ready to make boxed cake, it would have been just fine. He took maybe, 5 good bites, and the rest ended up tossed on the ground by baby CJ.

Internally, I couldn’t decide whether to laugh or be mad at the fact that this cake was making me stressed out for no reason. Of course, I ended up laughing at myself because I realized that was just another thing I had just learned as a first-time mom. I wish I had known this while looking for recipes because that would have cut out the middleman; that being stress and waste of time and ingredients.

However…

I highly recommend you do this photoshoot because it is so fun and easy to do. And now, that you know about the cake options, it will be even easier! We did end up in the high chair because baby CJ just kept trying to crawl onto the un-papered ground, so be ready for a runaway!