Parental guidance: What is a 'smash cake?'

Enter the smash cake, which has become a popular addition to first-birthday bashes.

"It's a little cake for their first birthday that they just dig into," says Tiffany Macartney, who baked one for her son Matthew's birthday celebration in December. There's still a big cake for the guests, but the smash cake is a smaller version, usually with the same theme, that the birthday child can eat any way he wants to without worrying about the mess or ruining the cake. Matthew's big cake, for instance, had a barnyard theme, while his smash cake was a cow's face.

"He destroyed that cake," says Macartney, who also is one of the leaders of North Shore Mamas, a 170-member meetup.com group for moms and their children primarily in Huntington, Northport and Commack. Parents usually take a lot of photos of the baby eating his smash cake. "The pictures are hysterical," Macartney says.

Some bakeries will include a smash cake if you order a regular first-birthday cake. Check with your local bakery to see if it provides one.