New Toys...

Yes, cake decorators get excited about new toys too...they are just different than what the average person may get excited about. My newest toy is my new Cricut Cake machine. For those of you familiar with the scrapbooking Cricut machines, this is the same except you use it to cut food products with. Instead of using a self-adhesive cutting mat like you would use with paper products, you use shortening to adhere your material to the mat. I'm still learning how to use it...experimenting with different materials and settings to get the results I want. I get a little frustrated sometimes when I can't get it to cut the way I want, but that's usually when I'm working on only a couple of hours or so of sleep after doing a wedding cake the night before. I've only had the machine for a couple of weeks...so far the things that I've been able to cut really well are Cricut frosting sheets, gumpaste, chocolate fondant with Tylose (if I can get it to the proper consistency after freezing it), and cheese slices...yes, cheddar cheese slices. It's really too bad that I can't decorate cakes with cheese, because that actually worked out better than anything thus far...unfortunately most customers don't want cheese on their cakes. I've done quite a bit of on-line research to see what seems to work. I ordered one product called Sugarveil that I will be experimenting with this week. If I can get it to work like I want, I will be posting the results with the instructions...a somewhat lengthy process, but worth the time if I can get it to work. 

I have decorated two cakes so far using the Cricut Cake...the first with gumpaste and the second with the frosting sheets. I've been pretty happy with both results, but don't care much for the taste of the frosting sheets...and they are very pricey, so hope to use other products.

I am persistent, so I will keep working until I get the desired results, and then share my knowledge on my blog.

Outside of Cricut Cake...pretty red

Inside...all completely food safe

Two cartridges that I have used so far...any of the Cricut cartridges work on the Cricut Cake.

Wedding cake using gumpaste scroll cutouts

Closeup of scroll work

Mini wedding cake using frosting sheet cutouts

Closeup of heart design