Woman refuses to eat nephew's smash cake; calls it 'gross'; gets angry call from sister.

'AITA for refusing to eat a 'smash cake'?'

Yesterday was my nephew's 1st birthday, and my sister and BIL had a little get together at their house. When it was time for cake, they brought out my nephew's 'smash cake'—exactly what it sounds, a cake for the baby to smash up and get icing all over themselves for cute pictures or whatever.

I kind of imagined that it would be the size of a big cupcake, but they brought out a regular-sized round birthday cake. I just kind of figured they splurged and still expected the cake to just be for him to play around with.

BUT. After my nephew had gone at this cake with his bare hands, and stuck his whole face in it, my sister started scooping up the mangled remains and distributing servings to everyone (just a handful of family members.) And everyone else was actually eating it!

I declined because...seriously? I didn't want to eat something that has had a baby's grubby hands and body all over it, and I was surprised that anyone else did. My sister insisted I take a portion and I said 'Really, no, that's gross.' Now...I probably wouldn't have used the word gross if I wasn't on the spot, but I was not at all prepared to have to politely decline to eat baby spit.

My sister was very hurt by that and told me later (on a phone call that I thought was way longer than it needed to be for the severity of the infraction) that she thought I was being extremely judgemental, that it wasn't a big deal, we're all family, don't participate if I really don't want to but don't call her gross, etc.

Here's what people had to say:

makethatnoise writes:

NTA. Smash cakes are supposed to be only for smashing and for the baby to eat. There is usually a second, non-smashed cake for adults to eat, or the adults are just adults about it and don't eat any cake. I've never heard of someone trying to serve a smashed cake to adults.

Affectionate_Drive45 writes:

NTA- that is so gross!!! My daughter is turning 1 next month and we plan to have a small cupcake as her smash cake and other cupcakes for everyone else. We would never even think of having everyone eat the smash cake ugh.

jellybeanrowse writes:

100% NTA. A smash cake is for the child. There should have been a regular cake for consumption by the partygoers. It’s ridiculous to think people, even if they are family, want to eat something another person has mangled. Also, kids hands are gross. Babies teeth and have their hands in their mouths all the time.

I won’t even eat little kids bday cakes where they just blow out candles. They spit all over them when they blow out the candles. It is gross.

Cynnau writes:

NTA - No thank you. Want to do a smash cake? Cool, fine have fun but give me a piece of the cake prior to the smashing or have a whole new cake for eating. We have a tradition to smash the face of the birthday person in the cake after everyone has eaten it, but certainly not before.

Next time, if you have a dog, have the sister come over for a 'Birthday' and give the dog a smash cake then give her a piece of it haha

hellhound_wrangler writes:

'Wasteful and gross' is pretty much how I feel about it too. But trying to double down on the gross to eliminate the wasteful part (by serving the nasty-ass cake a toddler has wallowed in to guests) is, uh, not the way to fix that.

JudgeLestYeBeJudged writes:

My kids first birthday smash cake pictures are some of my favorites I have of when they were that little! “Wasteful” is so funny for a box cake mix that still gets at least half eaten.