My Bakery

As of August 21st, Just Eat It Cakes will be no more. Sniffle. But not to worry! We are opening up shop as Eleanor's Bake Shop. Sweet!

The official bakery grand opening will be August 21st, from 8am-8pm. Those are not regular store hours, but we thought we'd go all out for a day.

I will still be doing my specialty cakes, but we're adding on a gluten free bakery and a sandwich shop. We are sooooo excited!! And just as busy.

Stay tuned for more info. I'll be ceasing the blog goings on here and focusing on the Eleanor's Bake Shop Blog soon. Yay!

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.**