How to Design Cake Games

Encourage guests to be creative and festive with their custom cake designs.

You can design a cake game that gets the entire party involved in playing and sharing the sweet rewards. Take advantage of the desire that children and adults have to play with food by offering a cake game that allows them to do just that. The cake-making and decorating process offers plenty of opportunities for your guests to interact, compete and contribute to the final product.

Things You'll Need

• 3 cake pans (various shapes)
• 3 boxes of cake mix (various flavors)
• 3 sets of measuring cups
• Eggs
• Vegetable oil
• Water
• 3 mixing bowls
• 3 spoons
• Cake decorating tools
• Frosting
• Edible and non-edible cake decorations
• 9 index cards

Instructions

1. Choose three judges that will not compete, divide the remainder of the group into three teams.

2. Allow the groups five minutes to come up with an original team name.

3. Ask the judges to rank the team names as first-place, second-place and third-place, based on creativity and originality.

4. Hide the three differently shaped cake pans in a cold oven and let the team that won the name challenge choose first. The second-place team chooses between the remaining cake pans. The last team gets what's left.

5. Give the teams one minute to read and analyze the instructions on the back of their cake boxes. Take the dry cake mix bags out of the boxes, give the bags back to each team and hide the boxes from the teams' view.

6. Supply each team with measuring cups, a mixing bowl, a spoon and access to plenty of eggs, oil and water.

7. Heat the oven according to the directions on the boxes while the teams mix the batter using their combined memories of the instructions.

8. Bake the cakes according to the directions and pull them out to cool for an hour or more before continuing with the game.

9. Provide the teams with their baked cakes and give them all access to decorating tools and supplies, such as frosting and edible and non-edible cake decorations.

10. Inform the teams that they have 15 minutes to decorate the cake for final judging. Short time constraints will force the teams to get everyone involved.

11. Instruct the judges to fill out one index card for each team's cake. The cakes will be ranked a maximum of five points for appearance, five for taste, and five for texture, for a total possible score of 15 points.

12. Announce the third-place team as the ones who will do all the dishes and the second-place team as the cake-cutters and servers. The winning team's members each receive a piece of their cake before any other team.

Tips & Warnings

• Take pictures of the completed cakes before they are devoured. Print a copy of the pictures for team members to keep and remember the party.

• Invite guests to bring their own cake decorating tools and supplies for even more diversity among the contest entries.

• Attempting to frost a cake while it is still warm will melt the frosting and result in a messy appearance.

References

• Daring Kitchen: Cake Decorating Challenge
• Wisconsin Food: Edible Antics: Kid's Cake Decorating Contest at the County Fair: A Study in the Philosophy of Perfection