Rosette Cake Smash Cake

I think my favorite part of any 1st birthday party is watching the precious little star or starlet dig into their own cake! When thinking how to approach Miss A's cake, I remembered the adorable rosette cakes I'd seen here and here. Mine is somewhat sloppier, which is fine as long as no one finds out I used to decorate cakes as an actual job ;) don't tell! But I like to think of it as simply more freeform or kitsch-y fabulous! This would be a fantastic beginner cake, the impressive result is a lot more bang for the actual buck you put into it! In other words: this is EASY, try it!

Here's the scoop:

1. 6" cakes seem perfect size and I used 1 cake mix, so it filled my cake pans full and then some! resulting in bonus would-otherwise-be-discarded-so-i-guess-i'll-eat-them giant cake tops You just cut off the heaping tops level with the top of the pans.
2. I used a cake mix and store bought strawberry frosting because well, sometimes you gotta pick where to cut your corners!
3. I crumb coat the first layer (which means just put a thin coat of frosting to secure all the crumbs and make sure no cake color is showing through) and then plop on the second layer and crumb coat the whole thing together.
4. Using a pastry bag and a larger star shaped decorating tip, you start from the center of the cake making little spiral rosettes. At the end of the rosette I found it looked nice if you just keep the tip moving along the outside of your circle rosette for a few seconds after you've quit squeezing your bag and applying frosting, that way your rosettes don't have little protruding peaks although that is not bad, and mine had several! This is super-forgiving decorating, you can make them all varying sizes, fill in wholes with little half-rosettes, put a better rosette on top of a failed one, whatever you want!
5. And just fyi I got that amazingly cute mini cake stand at Hobby Lobby for $11.99 but used my printable 40% OFF coupon! They had it in 3 different sizes, I might need the mother one to join it's baby :)

A loved it, she went to town for a glorious several minutes until this sleepy girl couldn't resist rubbing her tired eyes and caking them in frosting!

I'm slightly smitten with this cake and am thinking it will definitely make an appearance at many another occasion in many other colors. In fact, if you want some fun homework, google "rosette cake" or try to find them on pintrest: A-dorable! The 6" double-layered size makes me swoon! Wouldn't this make an adorable anniversary cake for a dinner for two?