A melted, spilled ice cream cone is usually something to pout about — but not on this cake. Instead, an unfortunate summertime accident inspires confectionary art — pro bakers like Katherine Sabbath have made cakes like this their calling card on social media. But with a few clever decorating tips and tricks, it's easy to make our at-home version (and impress all your friends). Here's how to do it.

To give this cake some extra party pizzazz, we used a confetti-style yellow cake (find full instructions here in the recipe) — but you can use any cake recipe you like. To make a cake as tall as ours, you'll need to fill four 8-inch round cake pans with about 1 1/2 cups of batter each. A taller cake will look more impressive, but there's no "right" way to stack this dessert — you can certainly tweak the decorating to suit a smaller cake.

Once the cake is baked and cooled, trim the layers using a cake leveling tool or a large serrated knife. This ensures that all the layers are identical and even, so you end up with a neat and tidy cake.

Don't toss the bits of cake you've trimmed off! You'll use them later to create the "ice cream cone." Place the scraps in a bowl and cover with plastic wrap so they stay fresh.