First birthday smash cake --- DDs never had junk food

[Pinky]

For those of you who did the smash cake for your baby on their first birthday... had your LO ever had any sort of junk food before that point?

We've been really cautious about not feeding her anything other than wholesome foods so this cake thing seems like a big deal. For some reason I feel like I should mention that we do not have good eating habits ourselves and have been trying to work them in since we have our DD... in other words we're really not over the top about eating perfect but we want to make sure we don't introduce "bad" foods to her unnecessarily.

I'm wondering how much cake they actually eat or if most of it is just played with? Seems like all that sugar would make a baby sick if they weren't used to eating like that. Are there healthier recipes to make a small cake with that is more baby-friendly? (not all sugar)

[MSWR0319]

Prior to our photo session DS had never had cake. When we sat it in front of him, he had no clue what to do! With a little coaxing he finally played in it a little but not the mess I was hoping for! We did bet cute pics though. The following weekend I let him have a cupcake at his birthday party and he was much more into it. Frosting everywhere! He had so much fun. He ate maybe half of I and didn't get sick. I wouldn't worry too much about that unless you see them eating a ton. I think there are recipes that you can use applesauce and such. Maybe try googling. I'm pretty surei found some that way but ended up making a box cake and he was fine.

[mskitty]

For those of you who did the smash cake for your baby on their first birthday... had your LO ever had any sort of junk food before that point?

We've been really cautious about not feeding her anything other than wholesome foods so this cake thing seems like a big deal. For some reason I feel like I should mention that we do not have good eating habits ourselves and have been trying to work them in since we have our DD... in other words we're really not over the top about eating perfect but we want to make sure we don't introduce "bad" foods to her unnecessarily.

I'm wondering how much cake they actually eat or if most of it is just played with? Seems like all that sugar would make a baby sick if they weren't used to eating like that. Are there healthier recipes to make a small cake with that is more baby-friendly? (not all sugar)

I made a regular cake for the family and a single cupcake for the birthday boy. I gave it to my little guy plain (I did not want to clean up a huge frosting mess). He played with it for a while, breaking it into pieces and eventually ate most of it.

Cake isn't really his thing. We went to a little girl's birthday party on Saturday. He ate two bites of cake, shoved the plate away and then kept coming back for more grapes from the fruit tray.

You could make a healthier cake with applesauce. We ate our cake after a meal so I figured he'd already eaten enough nutritious stuff, he wouldn't have too much room left anyway.

mskitty

[TwinFoxes]

DDs hadn't had any junk food. They didn't eat much, but enjoyed what they had.

[SnuggleBuggles]

Ds1 hadn't really had any either and nibbled at his b-day cake (not a healthy one- just straight chocolate). No big deal.

Beth

[Smillow]

My DS had had no solid food (including purees) until 11 1/2 months old, so I definitely did not want him having cake & frosting as one of his first foods. I made banana muffins (ww flour & a fraction of the sugar) & "decorated" it with whipped cream from a can. He did smash it but didn't even try to eat any of it.

Happy Birthday to your DD!:bouncy:

[mikala]

We didn't fuss about it much and did a traditional cake. We're generally pretty conscious about we eat so I figured one day wasn't going to affect LO's longer term eating habits.

If you want to limit the portion you could time the cake right after a normal meal so your LO doesn't load up on sugar. I've also seen parents limit the portion size to a cupcake.

This site has a few healthier recipes:
http://wholesomebabyfood.com/tipFirstBDay.htm

You could also use a Cooking Light or similar recipe for banana or zucchini bread.

[ohsara430]

DD didn't have any sweets or junk food before her first birthday but i made her one of those big cupcake cakes and frosted it with homemade whipped cream that I sweetened with only 1 tbsp of sugar. DD didn't know what to do with the cake when we set it in front of her. With some prodding from us she finally played in it a little bit and put only a small amount of the whipped cream in her mouth. She didn't like the cake itself at all, she had no interest in it. I was totally fine with her having the whipped cream sine it was barely sweetened. I wouldn't worry about your DC eating much of the cake, chances are they won't eat as much as just play in it. Have fun with it!

[bigpassport]

DS hadn't had sugar before his first birthday party either. He hardly played with his smash cake and didn't eat any. I say make whatever you want, and if he's really eating too much (which he probably won't) you can take it away.

[kellij]

My son wouldn't touch the cake. Literally. I worked on it for hours the night before, it was darling. He just looked at it. Wouldn't taste it wouldn't touch it. He's 6 and still doesn't like cake. It was pretty disappointing.

My daughter got in there with her feet, but I'm not sure she at one bite.

I've got another first bday coming up next month and my experience with my kids has taught me that I don't need to worry about it and I'm definitely not spending hours on it like the first one!

[s7714]

My mom made a separate little cake with no filling and colored whipped cream for frosting as my older DDs smash cake. She hadn't had any cake prior to her first either. She sat there and looked at it for several minutes before I took a bit of the whipped cream and put it to her mouth to taste it. She crinkled up her face and wanted nothing to do with it.

My younger DD also hadn't had any cake prior to her first birthday, but we opted just to put a piece of the regular large cake out for her. She poked at it for a minute, tasted it and then proceeded to eat a couple handfuls before moving on.

I'd just go with a lightly frosted cupcake or a slice of a bigger cake. Like a PP said, if your DC seems to be ingesting too much, you can always take the rest away.

[MommyAllison]

Neither of our kids had dessert of any kind prior to their birthday cake, and neither of them ate much of their cakes, or really smashed them at all! From all of the first birthdays I've been to, it seems like the kids who have already had dessert totally smash into their cakes, but the ones who've never had sugary foods before barely touch it. I did homemade carrot cake with cream cheese frosting - maybe chocolate would have tempted them more, but I doubt it. ;)

[maestramommy]

Prior to bday my kids had never had any cake or "junk" food. I didn't do a smash cake, but they got the first piece of their bday cake. Dora sorta played and ate it. Arwyn stuck her finger in the frosting and thought it was great fun. I *think* she ate it. Laurel devoured hers and made a mess in the process. Dora's cake was homemade but with frosting out of a can. Arwyn's was a cake from a bakery. Laurel's was a Betty Crocker gluten free cake with homemade frosting, technically the healthiest.

Nobody got sick. They all enjoyed their cake in their own way:tongue5: In general my kids aren't into cakes or frosting.

[barkley1]

DS hadn't had any junk food either, so when I did the practice cake, I let him try some and he didn't really like it. The day of the party, he played w/ it a little, licked some chocolate icing off his fingers and that was it. Very anticlimatic LOL. so, I really wouldn't worry - he probably won't even want to eat it.

[sunshine873]

DD hadn't had any sweets before her 1st birthday. But I'm a believer in the "all things in moderation" idea, so I wasn't too concerned about one cake building life-long habits. I made her a smash cake from a box mix. Chocolate with vanilla frosting. She ate dinner first, then went to town on that cake. She loved it, the pictures are priceless & then she had a quick bath & outfit change before opening presents.

[mom2binsd]

I don't even consider a piece of first birthday cake "junkfood", IMO.

I haven't ever seen a 1 yr old take more than a few bites anyway, it's all about the fun!

[brittone2]

With DS1 I made a healthyish cake. However, that was because he was still sensitive to dairy (even through me/breastmilk) at that age, and we hadn't intro'd wheat or eggs officially yet at that point. So for us it made more sense to make something. He was so tired by cake time he really just poked at it and didn't eat much. My ILs once told me i was a horrible mother for not giving him a full blown smash cake for his first bday (I think this was brought up like a year later LOL, it must have really bothered them). They just didn't get the dairy thing...and my DH later tested positive for a dairy allergy through IgE testing, so I'm guessing there was something to DS1's sensitivities.

With DD I made her a cake, but it wasn't super healthy. Might have been an organic box mix? I don't remember. I do know that we topped it with fresh raspberries (her favorite, and that's the only part she ended up eating really).

With DS2 we'll probably just do a regular cake. But he's not sensitive to dairy and has had eggs/wheat earlier so less of a big deal.

[logan's mom]

I made a small homemade cake with a thin coat of frosting for my DS's 1st B-Day. He mostly just smashed it around and smeared icing on his face.

However, I had a friend that just gave her son a mountain of whipped cream with a little sugar in it and she had "decorated" it with puffs and blueberries. Her son ate a good bit of his "cake." I would have never thought of this.

[Momit]

DS hadn't had any junk food prior to his first birthday. I made 2 chocolate layer cakes from my Grandma's recipe, one for the guests and one for him. At first he wouldn't even touch it. We put a few Cheerios (he'd had those before) on it and then he started eating. He did eat a fair amount (maybe 1/4 of the top layer of the cake and lots of frosting) and he didn't get sick at all. Plus the pictures were ADORABLE - chocolate cake and white frosting everywhere!

The next day he went right back to his normal fruits, veggies etc. so it wasn't like having cake one time ruined his good eating habits. At 2.5 he's still a very healthy eater but he does enjoy sweets on rare occasions.

Happy birthday to your little one!

[newnana]

FIL made a smashcake for DD for her first. He is an amazing cake baker and decorator among his many other talents.

DD had not ever had sweets.

She had no idea what to do with it. When she touched it, the icing stuck to her fingers so she tried to flick it off an it went in her eye! She was D.O.N.E after that. I had never seen her cry so hard. She turned purple, was, sad, mad, and wanted nothing to do with it.

Afterward my brother suggested that I should have put a little on my finger for her to taste so she'd know what to do with it. By then she was so afraid of the cake she decided it wasn't worth it. All of that is by our interpretation, of course.

[kijip]

T had not had candy/cake before. We did a black forest cherry (family tradition for 1st b-days) and he excavated every cherry he could find and made a big mess and got whipped cream in his hair but he did not eat too much of the cake.

F same thing, no real sugar before and he ate a lot of cake. He made a big mess. He did not get sick.

Of the two, F def. has a sweet tooth.

We go whole hog with birthday cakes. Fudgey-frosting-gooey-bits-o-heaven. I don't do the whole regular cake for the adults and sugar free muffin for the kids thing, I think the kids can have what we are eating. It's not an everyday thing.

[BayGirl2]

I made regular cakes for the guests (shaped like a bunch of balloons actually) and a little cake (mini-balloon) for DS. For his smash cake I used one of the recipes from wholesomebabyfoods.com. It was an apple raisin cake with a cream cheese frosting. He may have had some sweets at that point, like sherbet once, but I didn't want him having a ton of sugar. He did smash it, ate some, got it all over his face. That recipe was pretty good - totally eatable for adults too.

[YouAreTheFocus]

I can only remember one occasion when our son had a sweet before his 1st bday cake. We were on vacation 3 wks before his bday, and we stopped in an ice cream shop. There was NO WAY we could eat ice cream in front of him and not share. He went nuts over my husband's (very strong) ginger ice cream.

I thought about making him a separate, healthier cake for his bday, but it just seemed kind of strange to me. It was his bday--we were going to hold the cake in front of him and sing, and then whisk it away and hand him some alternate thing while everyone else chowed down? It's his bday, he gets his cake!

He didn't eat much of it, just played around a bit. And 4 mos later, he still doesn't care for baked goods or sweets. I've often wondered when kids acquire a sweet tooth.

[Melaine]

We did banana bread with plain whipped cream on top. The girls had not had sugar and I didn't want to give them an overload.

[Pinky]

Thanks everybody... I had no idea what to expect as I don't think I've ever been to a 1 year olds birthday party. :) It's good to know that most kids don't eat a ton of it...

[Katigre]

I made a healthy, low-sugar spice/banana cake for DS and sprinkled coconut on top (at the time there weren't dairy-free/soy-free frosting options - now there are).

[BabbyO]

I made a healthy, low-sugar spice/banana cake for DS and sprinkled coconut on top (at the time there weren't dairy-free/soy-free frosting options - now there are).

There's dairy-free/soy-free frosting....what kind, where...please share!

We did something similar, but I made my own frosting and a small (3 or 4" dia" cake for DS. Due to his allergies it was the first time he'd had anything like cake. He played a lot, ate a little, and when he was done there was no problem.

Have fun...and take lots of pictures!