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Zebra stripes

I have been wanting to make a cake with zebra stripes and could not see myself taking that much time to cut them by hand so I have created an SVG cutting file that can be used to cut them.

Note that the pieces don't look like amazing zebra stripes as such, but you can choose which ones you want to cut and then placing them is what makes the design look amazing.

If you would like to use the file, just click here.

Follow my blog and you can use this file freely for personal or commercial purposes.

New Year's Eve Crop Cake

This is my favourite cake so far. It was my first attempt at covering a cake with fondant and everything about this cake just went right. I feel I had a different attitude when I worked on the decorations for this cake. I just relaxed and had fun with it.

 

I posted a video that shows the Cricut Cake cut the frosting sheets close up on my CuttingEdgeDecorations Facebook page.

Happy Birthday Sweet Pea

I have learned a LOT with every cake I have made, and this one was certainly no exception -- in fact, I learned more with this cake than any other so far!

What I learned:

• Always create your layout in Cricut Craft Room first and cut it from paper so that you can see exactly how things will fit and where you want to put them. Note, I have a Cricut Expression in addition to my Cricut Cake. I would not want to use paper, glue, etc. in the machine I use for food.
• Have a look at the picture of the cut so you can get the face features right.
• If it looks like the amount of batter in your two pans is kind of skimpy, chances are you are right. I think it's best to make enough for two full size layers because you will want to cut the top off to make sure you have a flat surface to work on. Having tall enough layers makes a huge difference when you also need to cut some off the bottom (wink wink).
• Food colouring does not always provide consistent results. I used Wilton gel food colouring, but still had inconsistencies. The red balloon, shirt and piping around the cake were made with the same colour, but they don't look the same at all. 
• Gum paste is my favourite material for cutting with the Cricut Cake. It needs to be rolled as thin as possible and you should not cut faster than at medium speed.
• Cut additional pieces while you have the material on the mat in case pieces break while you manipulate them.
• I prefer to cut with the rubber covering on the blade removed. I think I had better results.
• Cut your pieces with the Flip option so your cuts have nice smooth edges. They look much better from the bottom.
• Sit down and take your time removing the pieces from the mat carefully. They will come off well, but if you hurry, you might break some pieces.
• Once you put the pieces down on icing (versus fondant), it can be very difficult and even impossible to move them.

I made this cake for a friend's daughter's birthday to practice. While I am sure I could do much better, the learning experience was very valuable.

I was very pleased with how the pieces cut with gum paste. I only needed to recut the "s" and "w" in sweet pea because they got mangled when I removed them from the mat.

Halloween Cake

My second special cake was a Halloween cake for a crop at a local scrapbooking store.

I cut the shapes for this cake with my Cricut Cake -- I was still very inexperienced with cake decorating!!

Wedding Cake

My very first special cake was my son's wedding cake.

I was feeling very brave and offered to make his wedding cake without even knowing what type of cake they wanted. It turned out to be a simple cake -- much simpler than I thought while making the test versions, including my brothers tiered birthday cake!!

In the end, I was very pleased and my son and his wife were quite impressed. Little did they know how nervous I was during the testing phase.