Time to make your kiddo’s wish come true even before they blow out the candles!
How many days until it’s finally here? A children’s pretend play cake made of wood — for toddler birthdays and beyond. Let’s find your favorite flavor.
Yummy for the eyes, not for the mouth. (You can’t eat wooden cake.)
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Top 8 Wooden Cake Play Sets for Toddlers and Kids
- (01) Melissa & Doug “Mix’n’Match” Wooden Play Food Birthday Party Cake
- (02) Elm & Otter Handmade Wooden Pretend Play Confetti Cake
- (03) Imagination Generation “Wood Eats” Happy Birthday Chocolate Party Cake
- (04) Le Toy Van “Honeybake” Kid’s Wooden Vanilla Birthday Role Play Cake
- (05) Kids Wood Store Tea & Cake Waldorf Kitchen Play Set for 3+ Years
- (06) Plan Toys Two-Sided Rubberwood Birthday Party Cake Pretend Food Set
- (07) Tender Leaf Toys Role Play Wood Birthday Cake for Toddlers
- (08) Hape Double Flavored Toy Wooden Birthday Cake Play Kitchen Accessories Set
How to play with a wooden birthday cake?
Planning and organization skills come naturally when your toddler prepares for a birthday party — whether it’s someone’s real birthday or just for fun. “Who should we invite?” “How can we make the occasion extra special?”
Kids can pretend to make the cake from scratch. By gathering ingredients, mixing batter, spreading frosting, putting it in the oven, and waiting for it to cook through — they’ll get first-hand experience of pretending to bake in the kitchen just like Mom and Dad.
Kids can put it on the table like a real cake, and serve it to their friends. They’ll practice social skills like sharing and asking polite questions. “Oh do behave.”
Isolation from the pandemic did a number on us. Spending quality time communicating with people you care about boosts self-confidence for people of all ages. After the pretend birthday party is over, your toddler will have something to feel accomplished about! “Hours of fun! That was a party I’ll never forget!”
With so many colors and shapes — playing with open-ended cake toys enhances color and shape recognition, and helps toddlers apply basic math skills like addition, subtraction, and basic fractions. “There are 6 pieces of cake total, and we’ve already eaten 2. How many more pieces do we have left?”
Plus, you get to do all the baking and eating without all the mess! No batteries, and screen-free social interaction? It’s time to cut the cake!
Play Cake Shopper’s Guide: What to look for
The kitchen is where kids spend time with Mom and Dad, and birthday party cake play fits right in with the kitchen play theme. Let’s see what’s cooking!
Natural Materials
First off, wood is a natural material less likely than plastic to end up in a landfill. Wooden cakes look better too — don’t you think? A fun way to put it is: “Wooden cakes last a lifetime in your home. Plastic cakes last an eternity buried in the ground somewhere.”
Fancy Flavors & Aesthetic Design
Just like an edible cake you’d buy for your kiddo’s big day — style matters. Even though you can’t eat a wooden kids’ cake, you should still buy the most “delicious-looking” in your child’s favorite flavor — chocolate, vanilla, or confetti?
Make sure to check out the design on the inside of the cake after your kiddo cuts a piece. Most birthday cake play sets are painted solid on the inside — pretty boring — but a few have delightful designs, like strawberries, layers, or confetti bits painted on.
Number of Slices
Most wooden birthday cakes are circular and cut radially into 6 or 8 play cake pieces. If you’re planning a party for 9 toddlers, there won’t be enough cake to go around.
Make sure you look at the size of the cake before you buy. Since wooden cakes are designed for toddlers (typically 3+ years old), you’ll find cake toys smaller in real life than how they appear online.
Candles, Toppings & Decorations
Look for popular accessories like removable candles, toppings, and decorations. With holes for the candles to fit into, this is the best type of play cake for developing hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills.
Velcro Pads
Velcro-stick ready-to-cut cake pieces are a play feature you might not be all that wild about. If you prefer all-natural toys, you’ll want to avoid velcro. But velcro makes it easier for tiny hands to hold pieces together. Especially with play food, velcro stick pads are quite popular.
Serving Utensils & Cutlery
Don’t forget the utensils! Most play cakes come with a full-diameter cake base for easy carrying. And you’re going to need a wooden play knife or cake shovel to serve each piece. Plates, cutlery, and drinking cups are less common — and available in only a few available toddler play cake sets.
(01) Melissa & Doug “Mix’n’Match” Wooden Play Food Birthday Party Cake
From America’s most well-known educational toy company Melissa & Doug comes an activity-ready wooden play food cake for ages 3 to 6 years old.
Interactive toy design is always top-of-mind for the people behind Melissa & Doug.
It includes 6 removable wooden candles, with a hole in the top of each piece of cake for the candle to slide right in. Notice each of the candles is a different color.
It includes several cake toppings like gumdrops and jellybeans — each in the exact same shape — like a toddler-friendly wooden coin. The backside has velcro, and each piece of cake has the other side of the velcro.
With so many loose parts (not recommended for babies), you’ll be happy the set comes with a sectioned wooden tray for helpful organization while playing and easy storage between birthday parties.
Play cakes are traditionally for pretend play, but these interactive details like mean this cake is a learning puzzle too!
Cutting the cake just right is made easy with the toddler-safe wooden play spatula. Remember to give the first piece to the person whose birthday it is!
(If you think everything is prettier in pink, Melissa & Doug offers a pink-colored triple-layer cake worth a second opinion.)
(02) Elm & Otter Handmade Wooden Pretend Play Confetti Cake
Recommended for toddlers 3 years and up, Elm & Otter brand uses all-natural linden wood to handcraft their delightfully minimalist wooden play cake.
Confetti makes anything more fun, doesn’t it?! Gorgeous soft-pastel-colored confetti is visible both around the outside of the cake and on the interior of the slices of cake.
Hand-made and hand-painted mean your Elm & Otter cake purchase is truly one-of-a-kind. The fact it’s water-based non-toxic paint gives parents peace of mind. A toy shaped like a cake is going to make contact with your toddler’s mouth at some point.
The complete birthday cake play set includes the cake, a serving plate, and 6 candles — fewer accessories than most. Since it’s handmade, the price runs a little higher.
Plus pretend candles in pure white — they’re a removable fine-motor booster just like the Melissa & Doug model we looked at.
But at just 4.5 inches wide, this is a tiny cake. (The Melissa & Doug cake measures ≈9″ inches in diameter — much bigger.)
(03) Imagination Generation “Wood Eats” Happy Birthday Chocolate Party Cake
Imagination Generation on Amazon
Besides the soft and creamy pink, green, blue, yellow, and purple candles and frosting, the pastel pink cake plate, and spatula — one thing that makes Imagine Generation’s pretend play wood cake is fractions.
Huh? Yep, the full set comes with 5 pieces of cake, so it’s one of the only cakes with an odd number of pieces. All play cakes help promote learning practical math concepts — and this one’s unique in that you’re dealing with fractions with an odd denominator.
Beautifully crafted cake pieces are held snuggly together by a raised-border plate and self-stick velcro tabs that make a sensory “scrrratttch” slicing sound when your kiddo pulls the cake pieces apart. All the more life-like.
If you like the features, but pastel vanilla cake isn’t your flavor — Imagination Generation also offers a chocolaty 4-piece cake alternative complete with strawberries and kiwi slices and felt-flamed play candles.
(04) Le Toy Van “Honeybake” Kid’s Wooden Vanilla Birthday Role Play Cake
Age-appropriate for young toddlers 2+ years, it’s a pastel yellow and pink layered wooden cake as creamy as could be.
6 velcro-stick pieces, 6 felt-tipped candles, a wooden cake cutter, and a strawberry on the top — you’ve seen most of these interactive features before.
So now it’s just down to style.
Again, this cake is only ≈5 inches in diameter, smaller in diameter than other popular models. You could spin it — good for teaching kids to value quality foods even in small quantities.
(05) Kids Wood Store Tea & Cake Waldorf Kitchen Play Set for 3+ Years
With fewer busy details, more natural unpainted wood, and an expansive variety of teacups and afternoon treats — it’s one of the best cake sets for real people looking for a realistic tea party role play.
The full set has 26 birthday party play pieces — everything you need to slice and serve cake, then wash it down with a relaxing lemony tea and light-hearted conversation.
Reminiscent of the Waldorf style, it’s simple-as-possible and close-to-nature.
Handmade from eco-natural linden and alder wood that is safe for children — the toy surface feels velvety to the touch.
(06) PlanToys Two-Sided Rubberwood Birthday Party Cake Pretend Food Set
When Plan Toys says their toys are sustainably made, they mean it.
Plan Toys are made in Thailand from rubberwood native to the Trang area rainforests. Even the waste wood that can’t be made into toys is used to power their factory.
Pink and white with 6 pieces, 6 candles, a round cake platter, and a chunky cutting knife — but here’s something you haven’t seen before.
One innovative feature I love — Plan Toys’ cake is double-sided. You play with the chocolate side or the strawberry side — whichever flavor your toddler wants to put on the menu.
For an edible birthday cake, it’s very common to have it personalized with the birthday boy or girl’s name written in frosting. Plan Toys’ rubberwood cake set comes with a tiny chalkboard decoration, enabling you to write a friendly greeting for any occasion. “Happy 3 Year’s Birthday, YOUR-CHILD’S-NAME-HERE!”
(07) Tender Leaf Toys Role Play Wood Birthday Cake for Toddlers
Tender Leaf Toys Store on Amazon
Eco-friendly, chemical-free, child-safe, and available in 2 wonderful gourmet flavors — dark chocolate or rainbow layer cake.
Tender Leaf Toys’ takes the cake when it comes to interior cake designs that are pleasantly surprising. Based on the frosting (chocolate or pink), you’re in for a big surprise after cutting the cake (strawberry cream or rainbow layers).
About 5″ inches in diameter, 6 pieces, 6 candles, a cake platform, and a serving spatula — it’s got the standard features you’ve come to expect.
(08) Hape Double Flavored Toy Wooden Birthday Cake Play Kitchen Accessories Set
Hot pink on dark chocolate — sounds like my guilty pleasure! Hape’s pink wooden play cake is double-flavored and two-sided for double the culinary exploration.
At ≈7″ inches in diameter, it’s larger than most birthday cakes — and is on par with the playability of the Melissa & Doug cake ranked #1.
The set includes 4 cake pieces and 6 felt fruit toppings (kiwi and strawberry slices).
The interior of the cake pieces has velcro, but the top of the cake does not. (That means — if you want self-sticking velcro cake toppings, go for the Melissa & Doug.)
The cake plate is raised around the border to keep the cake in place, with 4 perforations that make it easier for your child to wedge out a piece of cake from the plate.
