M&M Piñata Cake

Hey party people!  My son turned NINE last week.  NINE.  NINE TIMES.  (Bueller, anyone?)  That's so old.  As Carson pointed out, he's halfway to 18, at which point he'll leave us forever (orrrr, maybe he'll go to a local college and live in our basement until his 40's...I'm okay with that, I think).  We celebrated on Thursday, his actual birthday, with an Italian dinner out and then cake at home.  Since he's getting older and a Yo Gabba Gabba cake will no longer suffice, I had to get creative.  I've been curious about these "piñata" style cakes for awhile now - the ones that are sliced open to reveal an inside full of candy - but I wanted him to think it was just a regular old cake...

...bwa ha ha.  Bwahahahahaha.  That's my evil, sneaky laugh.

So I baked it while he was at school, following this tutorial, and it was pleasantly easy to pull off!  I followed a recipe from MY BOOK for my favorite yellow cake (you TOO can have this recipe when the book comes out on April 17th!!!), and sliced each layer in half, resulting in four layers.  I cored out two layers using a large, circular cookie cutter, and then placed them all on top of each other with the cored layers in the middle, icing in between each.  One of the layers broke apart, but I was able to use frosting to glue it back together.  Problem solved!  We filled the center with mini m&m's - but you could use sprinkles or bite-sized candy bars... anything your heart desires!  

Explosion!!!

It's like a barfing candy cake, or something that sounds more appetizing.  

Two thumbs up!!