So Sand DIY Rainbow Cake

Reviewed by Kat Harrison

The So Sand DIY Rainbow Cake came to my rescue today. Fresh back from a week’s holiday with a mountain of washing to do, not to mention labelling the kids’ school uniform for tomorrow’s big day, I desperately needed something to keep my girls occupied. And this create your own colourful rainbow cake did just the job.

The colourful packaging featuring a picture of the promised result, immediately got my girls’ attention. There were ‘ooohs’ and ‘aaahhs’ all round, as well as a giddy dance or two. The kit contains 5 brightly coloured packets, billed as ‘amazing scented sand’. The scent was minimal. I’d say if we hadn’t stuck our noses right in it, the slight smell would have been completely missed. However, it was the look of this product that really appealed and the girls weren’t put off by the fragrance shortfall.

Alongside the sand, which comes in easy to open packets, you’ll find two cake moulds – one circular, one smaller heart-shape. These moulds don’t have bottoms so it’s best to place them on your ‘presentation plate’ before you start to fill them. Lesson learnt here.

The packaging states that there are 7 fun tools to help make, cut and decorate the cake. A rolling pin, a heart shaped squasher-downer, a circular squasher downer (technical terms!) a knife and a mini toppings mould take my count to 5. The only other accessories in the pack were the 4 clips which hold the two halves of the moulds together. Bit of a maths fail here but the tools they had seemed to suffice. The girls and their little hands had much more success at clipping the moulds than me and my giant, grown-up mitts. The kit is recommended for ages 6+ but with just a little help at the set-up stage, my 4-year-old was off on an unaccompanied sand adventure.

The included instructions were easy to follow and once I’d run through them with the girls, I was able to leave them to it; pouring, squishing, shaping, decorating and slicing their very own sand rainbow cakes. They filled a mould each with layers of the coloured sand, rolled the white sand into icing, used the mini-mould to create a piped icing effect and then showed me their finished masterpieces, before cutting them into pieces and serving on plates from their toy tea set.

If we were to do this again, I’d encourage them to use all the sand in one mould at a time, as sharing it between two moulds significantly reduced the size of their ‘bakes’. This however, is where things for me go wrong…..

Once the girls had moulded their first cakes, it was near impossible to separate the colours. Think Playdoh effect. But worse. At least with the soft squishy stuff, you have some rainbow squidge for a little while; whereas after just one play, the vivid shades of sand had mixed and become sand coloured-sand. It was as if the beautiful bright colours had simply been replaced by a bucket of grains from the beach. It was so disappointing.

Yes, the girls had great fun creating their own rainbow cakes – where they sensationally scented? No. Yes, the kit kept them entertained for a good couple of hours but can they use it again? No. Not unless they just want to build a bog standard sandcastle shade cake. No rainbow sand here. The sand was easy to ‘sweep’ up but rather than saving it, we’ve donated it to the pit in the garden and added the tools to our Playdoh collection.

So there you have it. If you’re looking for a one off activity to fill a few hours then it works and it will be enjoyed. If you’re looking for something with lasting power, it’s not for you. (editor’s note – this is the reviewer’s opinion) I’d definitely consider weighing up the cost against the creative content and the children in question.

In summary – ‘Undeniable fun that kept the kids engrossed for a few hours – but it’s at a cost when the product you’ve bought into and the kids have made, can’t be recreated.’

Rating: 3 out of 5

RRP: £14.99

Available from a wide range of retailers including Argos, Amazon, Smyths Toys and Very.