Skip The Custom Order And Jazz Up Grocery Store Cake With A Simple Trick

You could call "Happy 1th Birtsday" jazzy — or — you could actually jazz up grocery store cake by skipping the overpriced, never-quite-right custom order, and DIY-ing one you'll actually like. Is it hard? Nah. Do you need special tools? Nope! Does secretly carving out the inside of a store-bought cake, filling it with rainbow Pop Rocks, and icing over the top like nothing happened make you feel like Angus MacGyver and Martha Stewart had a baby which turned out to be you — a superhuman party-starting hero? Heck. Yeah.

This is what's known on the internet as a "surprise" cake, piñata cake, or an explosion cake (although to me, a surprise or piñata cake sounds like fun, while an explosion cake sounds like you'll be calling 9-1-1 after everyone is covered in unicorn sprinkles). A massive upgrade from a weeknight Oreo mug cake, surprise cakes typically feature a tall, round layer cake, iced to the nines, revealing nary a clue that the hollowed-out inside is positively packed with candies ready to spill forth like a river of Nerds once the first slice is cut.

You can order these show-stoppers at almost every bakery for the small price of, say, $150 or more. But, hot tip, with a little elbow grease and a couple of supermarket Bundt cakes, you can create a tricked-out dessert for $30 or less. Let the not-baking begin.

Once you get to know grocery store cakes, you quickly discover that affordability doesn't always equal party-worthy panache. What's more, making a cake from scratch isn't always that easy. ("Hello? King Arthur Baker's Hotline? How much is a 'pinch'?") Luckily, a few clever mods can turn just about any store-bought cake into a welcome surprise.

The idea is to stack layers, creating a space in the middle for your surprise filling. While you could grab one or two round cakes and carve out the center, for a quicker start, pick up a couple of donut-shaped ring cakes which already come with a hole in the middle. Level off the top of the lower cake (save that extra cake!), and stack the second one on top. Then, pour in your favorite candy (something smooth works better than sticky gummies), plug the top of the hole with pieces cut from your excess cake, and frost the outside.

While your décor can be as simple as Salt Bae-ing some edible confetti on top, or as unapologetically maximalist as piping Victorian buttercream in loop-de-loops, what matters most is what's on the inside. Candy fillings run the gamut from cake sprinkles to M&Ms, chocolate coins, gumballs, and Chex cereal puppy chow. You can even stuff it with fresh fruit, or cash (sealed in plastic, of course). But, all in, the real cherry on top is not having to shell out for a custom cake.