1St Birthday Cake? - Janesville,WI

A one year old angel should have angel food cake with fluffy pink frosting - very appropriate, and angel food cake is not as crumbly and stays in chunks so less mess.

I agree with the cupcakes and smash cake (although one cupcake could function as smashcake). Remember colored frosting can stain so keeep it simple.
Buy a spice cake mix then add cup of applesauce. Makes a yummy apple spice cake. It also allows you to lessen oil. Sorry I don't remember exact amounts. Google hungry girl and then she has 2 or 3 ingredient cakes..I think applesauce is included. We did brownies with sprite as the only ingredient then canned cream cheese frosting.

If you've never made a cake from scratch before, just heed this advice: use good "real" ingredients.

That means, use unbleached white flour, sugar that comes from sugar cane (not sugar beets), chocolate squares that doesn't contain waxy ingredients (Bakers, Ghiradeli, etc.), fresh eggs (organic if you can), fresh fruit (if fruit is involved). Real organic butter and whole milk, not skim and margarine (full of trans fat anyway). Whole milk. You get the picture.

That way, if you screw up, the cake should still taste good!

For 1st birthdays we do the free "smash cake" for them to devour and make a mess of, from Dominick's or Jewel. We ask for whipped cream topping, not icing. We have video of every one of our kids smashing it, making a huge mess and all of us laughing along the whole time.

Then we did cupcakes for everyone else. It's much easier for you to focus on your birthday girl and all the fun pics if you're not stuck cutting a cake for everyone else.

If you're having other kids there, cupcakes are a great hit. Esp if they have sprinkles or candy topping as every kid asks for the candy flowers, etc. We go to the Party Card Outlet and buy those candy pieces shaped like Elmo, Dora, etc. to put on each cupcake. Then put it all on a cupcake "tree".

We've used cupcake trees for EVERY kids' birthday since. That way I don't have to slice up a cake, make a huge mess, etc. We just hand out cupcakes and watch the kids lick off the icing and then throw out the "cake". LOL

I made a cake for my daughter when she was 1 year old. It was my first time to make a cake from scratch. My daughter doesn't want to eat it at all :-p how embarrassed. I wish I went to Giant or Safeway food store to get a free cake for my daughter instead. :-p they gave a cake for 1 years old birthday kid free. you can check on this website. http://wholesomebabyfood.momtastic.com/tipFirstBDay.htm

Don't forget you get a free first birthday cake from Byerly's or Lund's. Just go in early to order it and bring the birth certificate with when you order. You could make the smash cake and use the other one to serve guests, or vice versa.

I'm not sure what you mean by "appropriate".
All I know is that my daughter had so much fun with her first cake, she practically had to be hosed off afterwards.
My advice? Don't have anything on your daughter you don't want getting stained no matter what kind of cake you bake.

Here is a link for a recipe that was handed down by my grandmother. (This is the google version anyway).
I don't know if you'll choose it for your daughter's birthday cake, but it's easy to make from scratch and delicious.

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/chocolate-mayonnaise-cake-ii...

Best wishes!

I've always just used a box mix - no one EVER knows :)

As for decorations, for my first daughter we just did sprinkle cake with fluffy white icing and a #1 candle. For my second I did a cherry cake with pink icing; again, nothing too fancy. I'm still undecided about what we're going to do for our third daughter...but I've still got 2 months :)

BOX MIX!! I've done from scratch and box mix. I'm a from scratch kind of gal on alot of things. I make home made baby food, home made everything but on this one, use the box. Do a plain yellow or vanilla. Make a buttercream frosting. Your baby will love it! (You may want her to just have a tiny lick of frosting and only give her cake without frosting, your call.)

Our daughter put her fingers in the icing and pulled back. She refused to be "dirty". She only tried a tiny bite and was not impressed.

She did like the punch and named it "Candy Juice".. Funny thing, she had never had any sort of candy before.

Punch ~ 2 Quarts Orange juice (fresh or frozen), 1 package Kool Aid "Dark Cherry", follow Kool Aid instructions and mix in with orange juice.

I did cupcakes too. Put a washed rubber frog toy in the middle of each one as a prize/treat for kid guests. Like already posted - cupcakes are easy to clean up and also for the bday girl to get her fingers all over/in.

As for making from 'scratch.' -- just buy a box of vanilla or chocolate cake mix. Buy a tub of frosting. Yum.

If you want a less-sugar-less-fat option, why not make an angel food cake? we had that for my neice's first bday. Mom got powdered sugar and dyed it pink and sprinkled it all over the top like little streamers.

I used Trader Joe's Vanilla Bean cake mix w/ homemade buttercream icing, for both of my babes.

They love it!

Oh and I used a 6" cake pan to make them. Perfect cute size, IMO.

Have fun whatever you choose to do.

You don't say that you're having a part,y and I am guessing that since you want to make a cake from scratch that you care about what goes into your daughter's body. If so, I would say avoid sprinkles (which are full of nasty dyes), the caffeine that comes with chocolate, and sugary canned frosting and boxed cake mix. Make her a nice banana bread with wheat pastry flour.

We have a giant cupcake mold that we do now for the little in our family (for their smash cake). We have one coming up in a few weeks and her Mommy requested a banana cake, so we found a recipe online and will use some cream cheese frosting with a little decorative coloring (pale colors so not so staining). Then we are doing applesause and banana cupcakes for the rest of the group...all with cream cheese frosting.

My son's first cake was a zuchhini cake with coolwhip frosting.
http://www.mylifetime.com/shows/cook-yourself-thin/recipe...

I made the Better Than Sex cake for my son's first birthday and used the giant cupcake pan to use. He LOVED IT.

my son was really in to turtles when he turned one. So I made cupcakes (I just used the store mix) and arranged them to look like a turtle before putting the icing on.