The Simple Way To Elevate Trader Joe's Mini Sheet Cakes

Some of my colleagues may enjoy baking elaborate cakes, but not me. Not only am I way too lazy occupied with other things, but to be honest, I kind of suck at cake decorating. That's why I was excited to try out a grocery store sheet cake hack making the rounds, especially since it starts with mini sheet cakes instead of those giant Costco behemoths. (Not to mention, I don't have a Costco card.) The ones most people on social media seem to be using come from Trader Joe's, although similarly-sized sheet cakes from Aldi, Entenmann's, or anywhere else should also work as long as they're thickly iced.

The way to make your store-bought mini sheet cake look homemade(ish) starts with buying three cakes, which should either be identical, or at least have the same frosting. Scrape off some frosting from two of them – you can also go with just two cakes if you prefer a shorter stack, but in that case, you might need to "borrow" frosting from both. Pile the scraped cakes one atop the other, finishing with the unscraped one on top (or smoothing out the frosting if you go with the two-layered approach). 

If you use the saved frosting to cover the sides of the cake, you'll have yourself a mini layer cake. If your frosting skills are anything like mine, it'll even have the kind of slightly lopsided look that does, in fact, scream "homemade" rather than store-bought.

While the top of your DIY layer cake may still have its perfectly pristine Trader Joe's frosting intact, this can make for a pretty boring presentation. Sure, the inside layers are exciting, but the cake will look all the better if you scatter something over the top. Sprinkles would work, as would chocolate shavings or dried fruit, or you can always use breakfast cereal to decorate your cake. Not only does it have that cute retro Y2K vibe, but it couldn't be much easier — and cereal camouflages a multitude of lumps and bumps. If you wanted to add any additional frosting without much effort, too, try whipping it to make canned frosting look homemade.

Another way to make the cake look pretty is to cut it into squares or triangles. Circles might look even fancier, but these would be wasteful unless you plan to make cake pops with the trimmings — which is, after all, the best use for leftover cake. You can then go minimal with the decor, arranging just a few berries, a mint leaf, or a piece of chocolate atop each piece. 

Your mileage may vary as to how professional the results look, though. Mine were a bit wobbly, and a Redditor also had the same experience, although they did say their kid liked it so that was okay. (I ate my wonky cake myself, because I'm worth it.) Still, if you have a steadier hand and a sharper cookie cutter, you may wind up with something that looks like you bought it from a bakery. After all, you kind of did, didn't you? Trader Joe's bakery, which brings the cake full circle from store-bought to semi-homemade(ish), and back again.