Review: Melissa & Doug Birthday Party Birthday Cake

Melissa & Doug specialize in open-ended, durable, wooden, pretend play toys for kids ranging from toddlers, all the way up to bigger kids. A lot of their toys are geared toward pretend play. Kids, especially preschoolers, love pretend play. They also love singing, "happy birthday", having pretend birthday parties for their stuffed animal friends, and love toys that simulate actual items they encounter in life. So, when we purchased this Melissa & Doug Birthday Party Birthday Cake, we knew our child would get many hours of entertainment out of this durable wooden toy.

The Melissa & Doug Birthday Party Birthday Cake comes in an attractive wooden box with four compartments. There are three small compartments that hold 19 'toppings' and seven candles. The bottom of the sturdy wooden box that holds the birthday cake and accessories, is painted with a festive birthday party confetti pattern on the bottom. The cake sits on a bright red serving dish that has a lip, so the birthday cake sits on it without sliding back and forth. The cake itself contains six slices, more than enough to share with friends. It also has a round topper on it that spells out 'Happy Birthday', as if written on with my icing. It is very cute. The Melissa & Doug Birthday Party Birthday Cake also comes with a very sturdy serving spatula.

The toppings are wooden as well, and very cute. They appear to be a variety of red strawberries, jelly beans, and what appear to be little candies, similar to juju bees (remember those?). They are little round discs perfect for little hands to hold and manipulate. The birthday cake also comes with candles that are painted green, blue, and red, with a yellow and red flame on them. The way they attach to the birthday cake, is by little Velcro rounds. They enable small children to just stick on the toppings or candles to the Melissa & Doug Birthday Party Birthday Cake without a lot of effort or difficult maneuvering, which is great for small children. The birthday cake slices are almost the size of an actual slice of cake, so kids can really feel as though they are serving and (pretend!) eating an actual birthday cake. the birthday cake slices are held together by Velcro as well, so a child can really 'cut' it with the serving spatula.

The only negatives I can imagine, are that there are a lot of little pieces, that may pose a slight risk to very young babies who still mouth pieces. Although the Melissa & Doug Birthday Party Birthday Cake is recommended for age 3 and up, just be cautious if your small child has a younger brother or sister! The only other issue is that the topper has to be removed in order to slice the birthday cake, however, that is more of a small consumer tip rather than a negative!

At under $20, this Melissa & Doug birthday cake is a durable, bright, colorful, wooden, imaginative toy that is wonderful for playing pretend.