I need to make a small cake, I have eight inch cake pans, but I am thinking even smaller. Has anyone done this? Or it is just a stupid idea?

I do 6 inch rounds and squares all the time. It's nice to have.

Do you use a pan or do you just cut the cake?

IVe seen like small 5 inch pans at craft stores for personal cakes, they are very cute.

does anyone have any idea how to keep the cake from getting inside the frosting if I have to cut the cake to make a six inch cake?

Put it in the freezer for 20 min, when you take it out swipe the big crumbs away gently, then crumb coat it. that should do the trick!

also if you have one of the big, flat icing tips they work great too.........completely coat the whole thing then smooth and it should seal the crumbs. BTW I did a really small cake like this (in my photos) for my DH for Valentine's day....I baked two 6" rounds and then cut one six inch to the shape of a heart...then used a heart cookie cutter to cut a smaller cake from the other 6"...then used tiny little heart cookie cutters to cut out about 5-6 even smaller little hearts...I iced it in ganache...but my kids loved eating the little hearts....Not too much trouble with crumbs...but wouldhave been a TON easier if I had frozen them.

I actually have 2, 3, 4, and 5 inch round cake pans. They came together as a set. I use them quite a bit if I have extra batter or need parts for sculpted cakes. I've also made some cute mini stacked cakes with them.

Courtney

These are all 3 1/2" -2 1/4" and 1" mini cakes - cut from a sheet cake - I made a template and cut around it. iced them with buttercream and then covered them with fondant.

I just did a 4x4 cake last night. I baked it in a loaf pan and cut in half and stacked. Turned out to be about a perfect 4" square-very cute!

I ordered the little cake pans (2", 3", 4", 5") on line and love, love, love them. Really could use another set but this will do for now.