Surprising your loved ones on their birthday or other special occasions is a common method of making the occasion more memorable. However, it isn’t always easy to find creative ways to surprise someone year after year.
Surprise Cake Popping Cake Stand is a cake stand with a unique element that can help you surprise your loved ones, especially on their birthdays when they have to cut a cake. The stand has a spring-loaded 2.8×8-inch plastic tube compartment or “Gift Pod” in the center.
The gift pod can hold small items like a small smartphone, cash, candy, or any small gift item/s. You can place a surprise gift inside the pod and cover it with cake icing when you assemble a cake on the stand or any decorative item.
The stand has a music box at the bottom with a trigger. The trigger can be engaged when your loved one is ready to cut their cake. This trigger pops the Gift Pod up and out of the hidden center of the cake stand, revealing the surprise gift inside.
What makes this cake stand unique is that the key components are hand-washable and reusable, which means you can use the stand for any number of occasions.
You may have seen the Surprise Cake Popping Cake Stand on Shark Tank season 12, episode 4. Mother-son team Liz Charm and Jordan Long came to the Sharks seeking $200,000 for 8 percent equity in Surprise Cake.
They explain the endless “pop-abilities” for their cake stand, and Liz tells the origin story of the Surprise Cake Popping Cake Stand. The night before her 12-year-old daughter’s birthday, Liz had a dream about hiding the birthday present inside the cake.
She wrapped her daughter’s new phone in plastic, incorporated it into the cake, and called it when her daughter cut the cake. Everyone was surprised and enjoyed the idea, which gave Liz the confidence to turn it into a business.
She explained how the “Kinder Egg Law” prevented her from putting gifts inside the cake, so she decided to incorporate the Gift Pod inside the cake stand instead. With the help of her engineer son and a product designer, the Surprise Cake Popping Cake Stand was born and patented.
While the Sharks were impressed by Liz’s story, they were not impressed by the future direction of introducing curated gifts for the pods and going into the cake business. The high valuation and product cost also did not tempt any Sharks.
Ultimately, Liz and Josh left Shark Tank without any offers.
Our Review of Surprise Cake
We were excited to try the Surprise Cake Popping Cake Stand and got our hands on the product from Amazon. Of course, you can always buy it directly from their website. Here is our review of this unique cake stand.
The Surprise Cake Popping Cake Stand is a little pricey, but the surprise element is arguably worth the extra bucks. It came in a nice themed box that included the Base, Gift Pod, high-adjustable Plate, Cake corer, Tube with the pull ring (trigger), Spring, and Shuttle.
We found the quality of the materials to be fine, but some other reviewers complained about breakage after some use. We did not experience any such problems with the product. The product is well-designed, and assembly is a simple three-step process.
The Topper easily hides the Gift Pod inside the cake once you cover it with icing or decorations. You can bake your cake or buy a ready-made cake and empty the center, place the gift pod, and decorate to hide it completely.
The ring trigger is a giveaway but works well and does the job. We tested the mechanisms of the Surprise Cake Popping Cake Stand multiple times, and it did not fail to pop up even once. What’s great is that the components are hand-washable to allow reusability.
It is easy to see how this cake stand can be used to surprise loved ones on multiple occasions like birthdays, Christmases, proposals, anniversaries, and even gender reveals. Even if a loved one knows about the cake stand’s pop-up mechanism, the Gift Pod’s contents still hold a surprise element.
The novelty of the stand may wear off after the first time, but you can still surprise them with gifts, as long as they fit into the 2.8×8-inch Gift Pod.
Pros of Surprise Cake
Surprise Cake Popping Cake Stand is a great product, and here are some of its most notable pros:
- The unique surprise element of a pop-up gift
- Easy three-step assembly
- Hand-washable
- Reusable
- Allows the use of ready-made and home-baked cakes
- It can be used on multiple occasions
- The surprise element remains even after the novelty of the pop-up pod ends
Cons of Surprise Cake
Like most things, there are some cons to the Surprise Cake Popping Cake Stand.
- Not the best materials
- Some bad reviews
- Relatively expensive
Who Is the Surprise Cake Popping Cake Stand For?
The Surprise Cake Popping Cake Stand is a great product for anyone who likes celebrating occasions and surprising their loved ones. It also works well as a last-minute celebration idea for any type of occasion or holiday.
Everyone from kids, siblings, partners, parents, and the elderly can enjoy surprising their loved ones or being surprised. This cake stand is particularly great for proposals and gender reveals because you can hide the ring or gender-revealing element inside the Gift Pod and reveal it.
Are There Any Alternatives?
We researched the market and could not find anything that matches the Surprise Cake Popping Cake Stand. There are plenty of decorative and purpose-built cake stands, but none have a built-in surprise popping element.
This is also likely due to the patents that the Surprise Cake company holds for the design of the Surprise Cake Popping Cake Stand
Our Final Thoughts
Overall, the Surprise Cake Popping Cake Stand is an excellent product and offers great value to those who appreciate surprising loved ones. If you are looking for a unique way to surprise someone on a special occasion with cake, this product is something you should consider.
The reusability and surprise element makes it something that can bring joy over and over again. We highly recommend families and celebrators try it out.
