Hello Kitty Cake

Hello All! I have been so busy visiting with family that I have not had time to post pics from Alex's Sweet 16th Birthday Party.

Well I thought I would share her birthday cake with everyone. I was quite pleased with how it turned out, seeing as I have only made like three cakes so far, and this was the first time I tried to make a layered cake.

Alex and I made 4 layers; one each at 10", 8", 6", and 4" in diameter. Each layer, except the bottom one, was cut in half and filled with a strawberry preserves filling.

Then we spread a thin coat of buttercream frosting on each layer to give a nice smooth finish to the fondant.
We colored our white fondant with hot pink, light pink, and black gel colors. Then we covered alternating layers with the light pink and hot pink fondant. The layers are supported inside the cake using wooden dowels cut to size and cardboard inserts between each layer.

This is where my Good Friend Missie, from Created by Missie came and helped me to decorate the cake.

Then we whipped out the Cricut Cake Machine and cut out Hello Kitty at 2.5" from Hello Kitty Greetings page 29 in white and black and we cut her bow in light pink. We also cut 4 sets of "16" from Hello Kitty Font cartridge. I believe they were cut at 1.5 ". We also cut a variety of circles in white using the Hello Kitty Font cartridge, page, 72 Shadow feature. We used Wilton's Pearl Dust on all white and pink fondant to give the cake some sparkle. (Thank you Leslie..for that tip!)

I also used a fondant mold to make the borders and flower buttons on the cake. It is hard to see in the picture, but the bottom border had flowers on it, the borders on the two center layers have a stitching pattern, and the top layer is a wide scalloped border.
Here is our finished cake. I am so pleased with how well it turned out. The more I make cakes, the less stressful the decorating becomes. This one was actually very fun to make.


I hope you all have a Great and Crafty Day!

Jan

Cricut Cake Machine and My First Cakes

I won a Cricut Cake Machine at a Cricut Circle event. A Cricut Cake machine will cut frosting, gum paste and fondant that you roll out thin and adhere to the cutting mat with shortening. There are claims that you can cut any food item that can be affixed to the mat, and fit under the rollers. I have seen samples of cookie dough and pie crust cut with the cricut. The instructions with the machine even say cheese! (I am not too eager to try that yet)

I did not think I would want a Cake machine, but now that I have it, and have played around with it, I must say I LOVE it! It takes practice, thats for sure! Many of my cuts didn't turn out the way I wanted them to, or were just too fragile to be handled. That being said, I did enjoy playing around and when I messed up, I just re-rolled my material and tried again.

I have NEVER made a Fondant covered cake before. My 15yo dd rolled the fondant out for my first cake and I did it for my second cake. It looked and felt like it was really thin, but when we cut into the cakes, it was actually pretty thick. That is definately something I am going to have to practice on.

Here is my first cake: I used the Happy Hauntings cartridge for all the cuts. Everything was cut using pre-colored Wilton Fondant.

















Here is my second cake. I used Lacy Labels for the flowers and leaves, and Cake Basics for the swirls. The flowers were made from gum paste and the swirls and leaves were cut using fondant.