Make some adorable DIY sponge cakes for pretend play! This is a fun and easy sponge craft for kids of all ages.

The finished sponge cakes become a DIY toy which are perfect for pretend cafes, kitchens or tea parties. You could even use them to set up a pretend cake shop, and why not add some donuts and rock cakes while you’re at it?

This DIY toy craft was originally published in 2013 and has been updated and reshared for today’s audience

When my kids were preschoolers they were fond of pretend play involving cakes – really, really fond of it. They would pull my high heeled shoes out of the cupboard (which was about all the wear they ever got), don one of my summer shirts as a glamorous dress and set up a “cafe” for me and the teddies.

I spent many hours being waited upon at their pretend cafe. On the menu was fish served with a side of spaghetti and meatballs, and always for desert there were some beautiful glitter sponge cakes.

The sponge cakes the kids made themselves looked nothing like the ones I made, but they loved serving those up most of all. The money spent on sponges, glue and glitter was very well invested indeed for the amount of use they had out of them. 

If you want to make some sponge cakes with your kids I recommend doing this activity outside because we all know that kids + glitter = a great big mess. 

For a more environmentally conscious craft leave out the glitter and replace it with hole punched paper circles for “sprinkles” (like we’ve done in our paper donut craft) or you could also use pom pom trimmings from different coloured yarn. Coloured buttons would work to decorate too.

How to make DIY sponge cakes

You will need:

• Sponges in a variety of colours. I went overboard and bought waaay too many, but it’s good to have a variety of thicknesses to create with
• Tacky craft glue – ordinary glue won’t be strong enough 
• Mini pom poms
• Glitter
• Felt in a few different colours
• This cake shape template

How to:

1. Hold a template over a sponge and use to cut out the shapes. This part needs to be done by an adult, or older kids could probably manage it on their own. Do the same with the felt.
2. Place the sponges, glitter, tacky craft glue and pom poms on a table and let the kids get to work.
3. Glue layers of cake together and decorate with glitter or felt icing and mini pom poms.
4. Allow to dry – this may take a while if the kids have used tons of glue.

What stunning creations, don’t you agree?

Now it’s time for tea…

I hope you have as much fun with this project as we did.

More DIY toy crafts for kids:

• Make some paper cookies to go with the cakes
• Make some sponge boats with duct tape sails for water play
• This foil tiara craft is also great for pretend play
• Kids will love making their own whirling, twirling whirlygig
• Here are 50 DIY toy ideas