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.**

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.

Cake Ball/Pops tips

I wanted to post a few tips about cake balls/pops. People have been asking me how I get them so smooth, you know, cause I'm good. So I thought I'd share my wealth of knowledge with the world.

If you don't know how to make cake balls, I feel your pain. I too was oblivious to the cake ball phenomenon until I attended a baby shower that fateful June or Julyish day last year. My confectionary life has never been the same.

So...if you do know how, bear with me for a minute.

First, you have to bake a cake. This is the hardest part for people to understand. Get a box, follow the directions, bake the cake, let it cool. You cook the cake first. Trust me. I've done it once or twice.

After the cake is all nice and cooled, I cover it with plastic wrap for an hour or so to let the moisture redistribute itself. It gets rid of most of the dry crusty parts from the oven. I still cut around the very edge, just to make sure I don't get any chunky stuff in the mixture.

So its all nice and cooked and cooled and moist. At that point, you grab a big ole' bowl and dump your cake in (after vigorously sanitizing your hands for the 5th time since you started baking), throw in a cup or so of frosting (you can make your own, or grab a can from the store), I like the cream cheese kind, and then you smoosh it all together. Mix it really well, you don't want globs of icing or dry cake. If you try to roll a ball and it falls apart, you need more frosting. If you roll the ball and its a gooshy mess, you put in too much frosting and you're pretty much screwed. Cause you can't take any out. Soooo.

You roll the mixture into balls, I use a cookie scoop to get it a consistent size, put them on waxed paper on a sheet pan and then throw them, (or place them carefully) into the freezer. Not for days, not for hours, I wouldn't let them sit in there longer than half an hourish. If they get too cold, they'll crack the chocolate after they thaw out.

When they've firmed up a little, I do a lot of walking. I leave the pan in the freezer and take out one cake ball at a time. Wait, let me back up a little. You need to melt some chocolate or almond bark. I would definitely start out with almond bark, you don't need to temper it, its harder to burn it, its just easier all around. You can get chocolate or vanilla almond bark and most grocery stores next to the chocolate chips. So you need to melt it in a cup or something that is just wide enough for your hand, but not too wide, because you want the chocolate to be as deep as possible, not spread out, like it would be in a bowl. I put it in the microwave for 20 or 30 seconds at a time. Stir it between each time to make sure you're not heating it more than needed. I also throw in about a tablespoon of shortening to thin it out a little. It goes further and when I bite into a cake ball, I like my teeth to sink into it, not get stuck in an inch thick chocolate coating.

When your chocolate is melted, go back to the freezer and get your cake ball. This is where you need to make a choice. If you want to do cake balls, grab a toothpick, if you want to make cake pops, grab a lollipop stick. Dip the very end of your stick of choice into the melted almond bark. This will help keep the ball on the stick, because the ball is cold, it freezes the chocolate into the ball. If you skip this step, you'll likely end up with a cup full of cake balls, they like to fall off.

Once you've securely stuck your ball, dip it into the cup of chocolate/almond bark. You want to make sure you've covered every tiny bit of cake. If you don't, all sort of stuff will start dripping out. Gross, I know, but it needs to be contained. I sort of shake/spin the ball until it looks like I can turn it right side up without the stuff dripping everywhere. This is time consuming, but they're pretty, so its worth it. :) I have a piece of foam in the fridge already, I just forgot to tell you about it. So I take the newly dipped ball right to the fridge and pop the stick in the foam so it sets up before it can get all drippy. Then I move onto the next ball. Once you get the hang of things, it goes pretty quickly

After they're set up, you're good to go with the cake pops. Put them in something cute, like a flower pot or a fancy takeout box. I just smash a piece of foam into whatever and stick in bits of tissue paper to cover up what's ugly.

For cake balls, you have to do a little more. The toothpicks will be pretty hard to get out without destroying the ball. Its kind of a lesser of two evils situation. If you don't dip the toothpick in chocolate first, the ball will likely fly off and destroy your chocolate and itself. If you do dip the toothpick in chocolate, it glues itself to the inside of the ball. After cracking several, I think I got the technique down. I go around the base of the toothpick with a knife or another toothpick to make sure the toothpick isn't going to stick there. At that point you can kind of twist the toothpick out. Just little twists, be careful! Once the toothpick is out, you'll have a little hole, I just put some of the melted chocolate into a bag with a small round tip, and fill in the hole. Then you can put them on a plate or whatever you want to serve them on.

And now you're a cake ballin' pro. I'll do another post on decorating them when I'm not tire of typing anymore, but Bakerella has a cake pop book coming out soon with TONS of CUTE! ideas.
http://www.bakerella.com/an-update/

Must Haves!

I'm going to sporadically (because that's just how I do things) post when I get warm fuzzies about items that I have, or when I realize my life would be in the crapper without certain things. Cakey things. Soooo....today was one of those days.

I picked up some Ball Plastic Freezer Jars a few weeks ago because I needed some cups to mix my frosting in for a class and I was tired of using disposable ones. It changed my life. I HEARTHEARTHEART them. HEART! They come in a million different sizes, they're not too expensive, you can use them again and again, and they're so darn cute. The lids twist on so your frosting stays nice and fresh. They're just lovely. I picked them up at Harmons, and then some more at Walmart. They're all over the place.

My Students Are Awesome!

I just finished up teaching a course 3 class. My students were amazing. Their final cakes never fail to impress me. Look!

I even thought I had talked them into some easier flowers, because the roses take so long, but they both came with a whole bunch of beautiful fondant roses to decorate their cakes with. Nice job Deserae and Dobbett! I had a blast!

Course 3 Fondant Class

Just thought I'd post that I'm starting a Course 3 class on Tuesday, the 4th. Its a 4 week class every Tuesday from 6:30pm-8:30pm at the Jordan Landing Roberts.

This is my FAVORITE class! I love fondant. Its great. So in this class, you'll learn stringwork, how to cover a cake in fondant, you'll learn the fondant rose (its awesome!), some royal icing flowers with the lily nail, and.....how to make a tiered cake. What's not to love?

To sign up, you can call in to Roberts and get on their sheet, or you can go in to the store and sign up at the classroom desk. $30. Great deal.

If you do sign up, you will need to bring stiff, medium and thin buttercream icing, your course 3 kit (use a coupon!), and your other decorating tools and tips from course 1 and/or 2. You do not need to have taken course 2 to take this class. You just need to have a backgroun frosting and bordering a cake.

Course 1

Course 1!!
Starts Tuesday, April 6th, goes for four weeks, til April 27th from 6:30-8:30. Sign up at the Roberts at Jordan Landing, just $30. All you need to bring the first night is a pen and paper. (And even if you forget those, I'll forgive you, and maybe even let you borrow a pen!)

Course 1

Time for Course 1 again! Class starts Tuesday, March 30th at 6:30pm. It goes for four weeks. Only $30! Sign up at the Jordan Landing Roberts. Its cool stuff.

This is the official spiel:


Discover Cake Decorating – Course 1

Thousands of people just like you have experienced the excitement of decorating their first cakes in a Wilton Method Class. With your Wilton Method Instructor as your guide, you will see how easy and rewarding it is to decorate wonderful cakes and other desserts that will delight your family and friends. Course 1 is the perfect place to start. Your Instructor will show you the right way to decorate, step by step. You will share the fun with other students, who encourage you along the way. As you learn each new decorating skill, you will gain a sense of pride in your accomplishments. Plus, you will be able to share your delicious results with family and friends!

End spiel. That's right. Delicious results. You know you want to.

Course 1

I am starting a Course 1 class on Tuesday, the 23rd. Classes will be held at the Roberts at Jordan Landing. The class will go from 6:30-8:30, for four weeks. It is $30. Please at least call in and get on the list so I know how many people will be coming before the class starts. Call 801-282-5575 to get on the list, or 801-755-7666 to talk to me for questions. Thanks!

Classes

If anyone is interested in signing up for cake decorating classes, I teach at the Roberts Crafts store at Jordan Landing. We offer Course 1, 2, and 3, as well as smaller project classes seasonally. The Course classes are $30 for 4 weeks. I have a Course 1 scheduled to start Tuesday, March 2nd. Sign up at the classroom desk!
Or call me (Janelle) if you have any questions. 801-755-7666

Each course is four sessions.


Discover Cake Decorating – Course 1

Thousands of people just like you have experienced the excitement of decorating their first cakes in a Wilton Method Class. With your Wilton Method Instructor as your guide, you will see how easy and rewarding it is to decorate wonderful cakes and other desserts that will delight your family and friends. Course 1 is the perfect place to start. Your Instructor will show you the right way to decorate, step by step. You will share the fun with other students, who encourage you along the way. As you learn each new decorating skill, you will gain a sense of pride in your accomplishments. Plus, you will be able to share your delicious results with family and friends!

Flowers and Borders – Course 2

Build on the skills you learned in Course 1! Your helpful Wilton Instructor will introduce you to many dramatic techniques to make your cakes unforgettable. Master elegant new borders featuring rosettes, reverse shells and rope designs. Give your cakes incredible dimension with the addition of bold color flow decorations. Create lovely new flowers like rosebuds, daisies, daffodils, mums and more. Use these flowers in a grand finale — an impressive flower basket cake using the interwoven basketweave technique.

Fondant and Tiered Cakes – Course 3

Reach a new level of decorating sophistication with the beautiful flowers and techniques in Course 3. Begin with intricate accents such as embroidery and lace, stringwork, garland and ruffle borders. Discover the beauty of decorating with rolled fondant — for covering cakes with an immaculate smooth surface and shaping fun figures and elegant flowers. Add several new icing flowers to your repertoire, including lovely holiday blooms like poinsettias and Easter lilies. Complete your course by assembling and decorating a towering tiered cake with beautiful stringwork, flowers and borders.

Project Classes 1 or 2 Sessions Each

Focus on one fabulous decorating project. We have more to choose from than ever — Pre-baked Gingerbread Houses, Fondant Cakes, Star Character Cakes, Cookie Blossoms, Mini Cakes, Candy and more.

Royal Icing

I use the Wilton recipe for royal icing. Click here for instructions.

Cake Pops

Bakerella has awesome instructions on how to make the perfect cake pop or ball. Click here for the cake ball directions. To make them into cake pops, just pop in a lollipop stick after you pull them out of the freezer!

Clara's Birthday Cake

So this is Clara's sixth birthday cake. She requested a cupcake themed cake and this is what I came up with. It didn't go as smoothly as I had hoped, but the end result left me satisfied in a kind of that's-good-enough-for-my-given-time-and-resources way. I've never made a cake that I wouldn't make some changes to, if I had enough time. 

But anyway, this is it. The cupcake topper was a raspberry swirl cake that I carved in two pieces to look like a cupcake. I covered each piece with fondant and stacked them. Pretty neat how a pile of six inch cakes can turn out so cute.

I made the cupcake tower out of strofoam cake dummies and cardboard cake bases. Slapped a little ribbon and paper on it, went crazy with the hot glue, and there you have it.

The cupcakes on the tower were gluten free dulce de leche with buttercream frosting. Not too shabby for GF, though I think chocolate is the best.

It was a pretty crazy day! I tried to brace for the worse with preparation, something very much out of character for me. And a good thing too, because even that barely cut it.

I had all the shopping done, black and white tablecloths, pink plates and forks and cups (um, for what? they drank out of juice boxes) and napkins, her first pinata ever, streamers, balloons, party bags, the works. Its one thing to buy the stuff, but to actually set it up...I bet they'd make a killing off of a party "installation" package. I'd buy in.

And as luck would have it, I had cake class that lovely Saturday morning. I was gone from 9:30-12:30, and the party started at 1:oo. I woke up early to make a ton of cupcakes, because who wants day old cupcakes? Exactly. So I whip up these cupcakes, get ready, feed the baby, wish Josh lots of luck with the three kids and the task of decorating the gym church with the various bits of cupcakey crafts I'd worked on in the previous days, and take off for class.

My phone would vibrate every 5 minutes or so during the class with last minute RSVPs. Clara had invited her entire kindergarten class, hence the church gym location of the party. I was only going to let her invite 10 friends. I said, "Clara, you can invite ten friends. What are the names I need to put on the invitations?" Clara, "Um, mom, I can't remember their names." Me, "Okay fine, here's a bunch of invites, you hand them out. Next day Clara, "Mom, I didn't have enough invitations. I need more." Me, "Great. I don't have any more. Here, you can give them this piece of paper with the info on them."

That's how it went down. And apparently kindergartner's parents don't RSVP until an hour or so before the party. I try to rush my cake class. I do. But ladies with frosting and speed (not the drug, but that would've been helpful) don't mix. I got out of there at quarter after twelve, rushed (within the law) to the church, grabbed Josh, rushed home and that's when things got out of control.

I grabbed all the cupcakes and then went to mix up the frosting. I made it about a week before. Its supposed to be good for two weeks. I opened the lid and got a huge wiff of spoiled. The stuff was rancid. That's just awesome. At this point, it was 1:00. I grabbed my mixer, my cream cheese and butter, called my mom to bring over some powdered sugar because I'd run out, and took off to the church.

When I got there, at like two after one, there were already several kids running around the gym. My sister greeted their parents and assured them, while the parents of the birthday child were not there yet, that their child was in good hands. I peeked in the gym, waved, smiled and dashed into the kitchen. I whipped up a double batch of frosting, swirled it onto the GF cupcakes and set up the cupcake stand.

Done? Not yet. One of the activities was to decorate their own cupcakes. I still had to color bits of frosting and stuff it into decorating bags. This stuff doesn't sound as time consuming as it really was. The kids played with the balloons, pin the cherry on the cupcake, and musical chairs all before I was done. Oh, and the pinata. That too. I finished right as the kids flooded onto the stage to sit at their tables and go through their pinata prizes.

I threw the filled bags on the table, announced that it was cupcake decorating time, and got swarmed. They loved it. Those kids love their sprinkles. Seriously, have a little cupcake with that glob of decked out frosting. I bet their parents loved me.