The Fabulous Cricut Cake

I am the luckiest person alive. I have a Cricut Cake. Click here to buy one, or just marvel at its awesomeness.

For those of you wondering exactly what the Cricut Cake is, I shall enlighten you. It would help your understanding if you've heard of the Cricut before. It looks just like the Cricut Cake, only its white (usually, they have a few other colors), and it cuts paper and other inedibles. Its an electronice cutting machine. You pop in the cartridge of your choice (they have thousands and thousands of the cutest images), select your size, and cut. I have the Cricut and it is awesome.

But the Cricut Cake...I lose sleep thinking about it. It cuts fondant, gumpaste, frosting sheets and cookie dough, to name a few. It also claims to cut cheese. Hahaha. I haven't tried that one yet. Its fantastic. I was worried it wouldn't work. I had tried cutting gumpaste on my regular Cricut Expression machine and it never worked, I thought the Cricut Cake would be the same, but its cuts like butter. The secret is to stick your gumpaste in the freezer for half an hour before you cut it.

Anyway, I haven't had the chance to do any fancy work with it, but I just had to try it out. So I threw together a quick little cake.

I cut the swirls and flowers out using the Elegant cakes cartridge. The black was a little dryer than the purple and it was so much easier to remove because of that. I think the older the gumpaste, the better. After cutting out the image and pulling off the excess, I stuck the mat back into the freezer to harden the gumpaste up a bit again so it would be easier to transfer to the cake.

Here's another not-so-great example of what the Cricut cake can do. I used the Summer in Paris cartridge. I wish I could have cut the poddle out smaller. It kind of has a giant-poodle-attacks-Paris feel. But it was so detailed, the gumpaste wouldn't cut smaller. We'll just assume the Eiffel Tower is miles away in the background. Anyhow, it gets pretty detailed, but it is squishy squashy material, and what works in paper doesn't always work in edibles.

Its pretty awesome. I cut things just to cut them. I don't even have anything to do with them. I just cut out images and throw them away, just to watch the thing cut. You should get one. Or come borrow mine.

Cupcake Cake Ball

These things are so dang cute, I can't even stand it. Seriously.

I got an order for just some happy cake balls, something cheery and light. So I started looking for ideas, and happened upon Bakerella (which happens to happen a lot), and I found this fantastic cupcake cake bite tutorial. It was perfect. Because who's unhappy with a cupcake? And when they're tiny and cake ball-y...happiness perfected.

I would add a few little tips. I used a little squeezy bottle to fill the candy mold about 2/3 of the way full. It was Wilton brand, and you can actually heat the candy melts in the microwave, in the bottle. Then after I'd dipped them in their "frosting" and it was all set up, I went back and checked for areas that I'd missed with the candy melts. If I found any, I just dabbed some more candy melts over the spot to make sure nothing would leak out.

That's about it. They were fairly simple and oh so adorable.

Cake Ball/Pop Winner!

And the winner is (after laboriously writing out every name multiple times and cutting out the tiny pieces of paper, folding them and blindly choosing the lucky duck, because I've never done this before, and though I know there is a better method, I have no idea what it is).......Melanie! yesmelanieis@gmail.com Yay! Congrats Melanie!

This was fun. I'm going to have to do it again. Maybe a cookie bouquet next time. Hmmmm....

New Cake Classes!

Wilton has refreshed their curriculum. The classes are very similar to what they used to offer, but its much more current. So cool! So I'm starting a Decorating Basics class on Tuesday, the 8th at 6:30 pm at the Jordan Landing Roberts. You can sign up there at the classroom desk, or let me know if you're coming so I can get a class count, and you can sign up that night. Make sure you let me know because I have to give you a list of supplies.

Must Haves!

I know this is stupid, but I literally throw tantrums if I run out of this item. Really. Like slamming cupboards and stomping around. I tried being green and using washcloths instead. For like a day. And then I started getting really ornery, so I decided my sanity is important too. I use them for everything. I wash my hands a million times, use them to dry off. I spill stuff a lot, and clean up with them. I dry my gumpaste pieces on them, because they dry faster than if I put them on a flat smooth surface. I use them to shape petals and bows. My baby likes to eat them. They make everyone happy.

Homemade Giveaway Extravaganza!

Time to get something for free! The winner will get a batch of cake balls or pops (around 30 balls), whichever you prefer, decorated to your liking. Well, to your $40 worth liking. I'm not putting diamonds on them, but they'll be cute.
You can enter four times:
1. Describe your favorite cake from my blog gallery in a comment to this post.
2. Link to my blog from yours and comment.
3. Become a follower of my blog, (I've always wanted to have followers) and comment to this post. (If you already are, comment and let me know you want an entry for it.)
4. Facebook about this giveaway and include a link to my blog http://justeatitcakes.blogspot.com/ and comment here.

The winner will be announced Tuesday, June 8th, so you have until midnight on the 7th to enter. She/he will have 48 hours to respond after I've posted the winning name. After that, I'll make a batch and eat them myself. Or, maybe I should pick a new winner. Yeah, I'll do that.


**Continental US shipments only. For anyone who lives outside of the Salt Lake Utah Valley, I cannot ship these chocolates until after summer is over, or they'll end up in a big blobby chocolatey mess.**

Decorating Cake Pops/Balls

There are a million ways to make your cake balls/pops uber cute. I haven't tried all of them, but the best thing I can suggest would be to do a search for them online. There are so many fancy ones out there, the ideas are endless.

I've only experimented with a few simple techniques, but they get the job done and look pretty sharp if I do say so myself!

I'm going to give you three examples, because that's all I remembered to take pics of.

The first is the chocolate swirl. This is a super easy, super cute way to dress up a cake ball a little bit. I always like to put SOME sort of effort into making them look good, and when I'm short on time, I pull out the bag. I fit the decorating bag with a small round tip, fill it with some of that melted chocolate (you can do chocolate on chocolate, or try swirling the vanilla on the chocolate or vice versa. there are also candy colors you can buy to change it up even more), and swirl it or criss cross it or whatever, onto your cake ball/pop. It does a ton for presentation and it takes two seconds.

The second technique is the edible marker. This one is also super quick and easy. After your ball is set up, just take and edible marker (you can get them at most craft stores in the cake decorating section) and draw what you want. These ones are softballs. I just took a red edible marker and tried my best! I think a pumpkin would be a really good use of the edible marker. Dye your vanilla almond bark (or buy orange candy melts) orange, add a snip of a green candy rope on top before the ball sets up for the stem, and draw on a cute jackolantern face with your black edible marker.

The last technique is a little more time consuming, and you have to go fast, because this stuff has to be done before the ball is set up. So after you dip the ball in your chocolate, swirl off the excess and when it doesn't look so drippy, sprinkle some sprinkles onto the bottom.  If its too wet, the weight of the sprinkles will drag the chocolate down. Then flip the ball right side up and add some shaped sprinkles to the sides. This part you have to do really quickly because it hardens so fast. And there you go.

I would really recommend looking up some more ideas on http://bakerella.com/. She does a lot with shaped cake balls. They're cute, but take a little more time.