Happy Fall!

I finally made another cake.  Well the weather is cooling down and since we went apple picking and had soo many apples I actually have been doing alot of baking (apple pie, apple crisp, apple sauce, apple cake, apple muffins,etc.) I finally finished all the apples.  My husband never thought that I could do it but I showed him-lol.  Anyway this last cake I made with the help of an assistant.  She has an excellent eye for cakes and designed this one with a little help from me-her mom.  My 4 year old helped me make this one.  It was a carrot cake with whipped cream icing.  I cut all the fondant pieces from the Happy Haunting cartridge and had them all waiting there while iced the cake.  I stepped over to the sink for a moment and she had almost all the pieces on the cake already!  The funny part was that she used her hands and none of them broke so it was actually amazing.  She also picked out the color for the icing-purple, and we added some purple sprinkles too. That night she told my husband and son that she made the cake and it was so adorable how proud she was of herself.  It was a good night, and it was also my birthday so we had a really great time.  I forgot to get candles for the cake and all we had was a number one shaped candle so there were alot of jokes going around the table.  I said it was perfect because I am their number one mom right? and the best number one wife-lol.  Anyway the best part of the day was that the kids were so excited about it.  It was like a holiday around here.  It really made me appreciate the moment because someday when my kids are grown and off to college, or married with their own lives I just might be lucky to get atleast a phone call from them, so its definitely a day I will always cherish.

Here are some pictures from my cake and the wonderful cards from my kids and my husband, plus a picture of the kids while apple picking.

                                                 from Jada, age 4

                                                  from Justin, age 8

                                                  from my sweet husband

                                      thats only part of all the apples we picked in the basket

Its Hard to Bake During the Hot Summer Months- Phew!

Sorry I haven't posted in a while but it sure has been hot here and baking has crossed my mind quite a bit but the heat has been unbearable.  So finally it is starting to cool down and I am thinking I have to get baking to catch up my Blog posts.  Well I recently had the opportunity to make a birthday cake for someone I love.  So I made a lemon cake with lemon curd filling, topped it with whipped cream icing and some cutouts from my cricut cake machine! Lets just say that cutting fondant when its hot out is not an easy task. I used my Birthday Bash cartridge for the writing and the Straight from the Nest cartridge for the birthday hat design.  I used wilton ready made fondant because it is less sticky then the fondarrific fondant and it was already hot and sticky out so I figured it would work best.  I used a small star cookie cutter to cut out the star on the hat and all the mini stars too.  Its not my most creative work but it came out OK.  The bad part was transporting the cake.  I had to put skewers  down into the cake to keep it from sliding and move fast to get it to where it was going.  That is not an easy task while getting a 1 year old, 4 year old and 8 year old ready as well. So it made it, and we ate it, and everyone loved it, so I guess that is what counts.  Hope you are all having a great summer! More cakes soon!

Who Live on a Pineapple Cake in the Fridge? - Spongebob Square Pants!

My kids adore spongebob so I figured it was about time to put him on one of my cakes.  This cake was sooo incredibly hard. It was so hot and humid here that the fondant was melting.  First I made a pineapple cake with butter cream icing.  I used teal Fondarrific butter cream flavored fondant too.  It was really good, but not as good as the vanilla flavor.  Also this time I decided to try something different and I think I had a breakthrough!  I planned to use the Wilton sugar sheets for the black background and I figured out a way to do it with ease.  All you need to do is to take the sugar sheets and leave them on the plastic they come on and put that on a regular sticky cricut expression mat!  It worked so well.  I am going to get a bunch of the sugar sheets for my next cake and try to do the entire design that way.  They are a little like a very thin fruit roll up when you take them out of the package but they do sort of melt into the icing that you put them on eventually and you don't notice the texture.  Also best of all they are tasteless!  So I cant wait to try them again, but it is way to hot here so it may be in a few days.  Keep cool!

Fourth of July Cakes were Fondarific!

Well I only have pictures of two of the cakes that I made but i actually made three cakes plus cupcakes for my husbands work.  All came out great!  The two cakes that I can show you both were made with basic shapes for the circles and stars from the Georges Basic Shapes cartridge.  I tried some new fondant this time called fondarific.  I got antique white and it was vanilla flavored.  It was SOOO much better then Wilton fondant.  It stayed softer and wasn't as chewy, plus it tasted like vanilla taffy.  It was really good. The one cake was a vanilla white cake that I added some red food coloring to and made it red and white swirls and it had whipped cream icing under the fondant. The other cake was a carrot cake with cream cheese icing under the fondant.  The fondarific fondant came in a 2 lb tub and was about 12 dollars.  I used it for almost three cakes so it was well worth it.  The only slight problem was that it was a little soft so my tiny stars wanted to be blobs instead of stars-lol.  Anyway I hope you all had a great Fourth of July and celebrated this wonderful country we live in, because I sure did. Oh also I got the new Cricut Sweet Tooth Boxes cartridge and i plan to make a few this week with my Expression 2 so I plan on posting them.  Looks like a cute cartridge right?  and I bought it for 24.99 too!

The winner of the Disney Classics Cricut Catridge is......;

Hi everyone.  First I want to thank all of my followers for all of the kind comments.  I picked the winner using Random.org and so the winner is....

Paula Talbert!

Paula please send me an email to jamiejlios@hotmail.com with your address so that I can get this out to you!

Thanks everyone and I hope you all have a great Fourth of July weekend!
Check back soon because I have another new cartridge to give away now too!!!

A Romantic Cake

Hi everyone, hope you all had a great weekend. I know I did, it was beautiful here in New Jersey.  So this week I did a dark chocolate cake.  I iced it with a whipped cream icing and then covered it in fondant.  It wasn't as easy as it looks.  So anyway I am sitting there looking at this white canvas of a cake and I had my new Wilton fondant molds on the table when my came home from work.  He suggested to me that I should maybe put some decorations along the sides to cover up any imperfections.  I started making these pink roses and I must have had love on my mind because my cake suddenly started to look like the top layer of a wedding cake -lol. So of course I had to get out my Sweethearts cartridge and made a beautiful heart to go on top.  I really love the Wilton fondant molds because they add a 3-D look to my cakes along that go along perfectly with the main design from the Cricut cake machine.  My plan is to make two or three more cakes this week.  I am making them all with the Fourth of July theme so wish me luck.  One is going to be for us, one for my husbands friend to take to a BBQ, and the last one is off to my husbands work.  I keep looking for some good ideas on the internet, and I plan on getting creative so check back soon.  Oh yeah also 3 more days until I give away the Disney Classics cartridge!!  I will announce the winner at 3pm EST on my site on the 1st of July.  Then the winner can message me privately with their address so that I can get it shipped out!  I cannot wait!  Can you??

How did you celebrate with the father's in your life?

Hi everyone.  Hope everyone had a great weekend.  This weekend was a special one.  Fathers Day! We celebrated it with one of the best dads I know- my husband Chris.  We took my husband out shopping and then to the Macaroni Grill for lunch.  Of course I baked him a cake.  It was a carrot cake.  It was a different recipe then I normally use, it had raisins and crushed pineapple in it. It was absolutely delicious and I made cream cheese icing to top it off.  You know what i used to decorate it...my Cricut cake machine! I used the Simply Charmed shirt and tie design because it was so cute!  I also used the writing from the Father's Day cartridge.  I made some fondant buttons to put all around the edges with a Wilton silicone fondant mold that I bought from Michael's Crafts this week with my 40 percent off coupon, so it only cost me about 5.99.  They came out so cute and it was very easy.  The fondant was really easy to work with and roll out because of the heat.  I even mixed some of the colors my self.  I have a new way of doing things when I make my fondant designs.  I put out a piece of waxed paper and place each layer that I cut out on it until I have everything I need cut out.  Then next I assemble it this way if something breaks i can remake that layer.  Also i have my little trick of putting the more intricate designs in the freezer for a minute or two before removing them from the mat and I have my extra thin spatula that also helps.  Hope you like my cake, I know my husband did.  Have a great week and don't forget that my drawing for the Disney Classics Cricut cartridge ends in 9 days so if this is your first time visiting my blog all you have to do to enter is follow my blog and post any kind of comment.  Thanks, so until next time...or next cake- Bye!!

Me Want Cookie!!

Lets just say its hot here.  It was 95 degrees yesterday and if felt even hotter.  So what do I do on a hot day?  Swim? Nope, bake a cake Hah!  I actually made this last night and it had cooled down nicely.  I made a delicious lemon cake with lemon curd filling and lemon icing -yum!  Too bad its not for us I sent it with my husband to work.  So this week i decided to use the Sesame Street cartridge.  I loved making cookie monster it was so easy.  Just three colors blue, black and white.  And are you ready for this?  I used the Wilton sugar sheets for the black background.  It actually worked great as a background because there was no intricate parts just the outline of cookie monster. Also rolling out the fondant went so smoothly last night and I am guessing it is because of the weather.  I put colored sugar crystals around the edge because I was going to pipe a design around the edge but the icing was just too runny from it being so warm.  So It came out OK.  I need to make a bigger cake because my designs are too small and I want to add multiple things and its really hard to do that on such a small cake. I am really loving my Cricut cake machine. 

Also this week I bought a gypsy!!  I got it from amazon and when it came I thought there was some sort of mistake because it looked like it was preloaded with alot of cartridges.  Well, I was wrong. too bad you can see them but you cant cut with them- hah!  Anyway it took me about 3 hours to register and update this thing!  Then, another hour at least to load all of my cartridges because I think I have around 90 or more.  You would think that having that many cartridges I would at least make some more interesting cakes right? LOL. Well, I'm trying. So maybe next week I might try using the gypsy with the cake machine.  I guess we will have to see.  Thanks everyone for reading

Also only 22 more days until the Disney Classics cartridge giveaway!  Wow! I cant wait!

Finally - A New Cake!

OK so sorry everyone that I haven't posted in a while, but I have one phrase for you to explain it all "3 kids with strep throat" Need I say more? LOL Anyway I did a lot of shopping over Memorial day weekend and found something new to try - Wilton Sugar Sheets! So I decided to try them in the cake machine. First off I would like to say that the honestly look and feel like a cross between paper and a fruit roll up. I removed each one from the package and then peeled it off the mat that it came on and brushed it with cooking spray to make it stick to the cricut cake mat. I decided to use the Independence Day Cricut cartridge for memorial day. So I started with the blue sugar sheet. First it ripped, then ripped and the ripped some more. Finally using the speed setting on minimum and the pressure on low I was able to cut something. I think these would be great for the punches Wilton intends them to be used with but they are very hard to work with in the cake machine, and once they are ripped there is no remolding them so its your loss. I wasn't able to do any lettering and intricate or small things are next to impossible. I feel like I wasted alot of money because the little design that actually came out is all that I was able to salvage from the 3 sugar sheets. They are 3.99 each so they aren't cheap. Anyway I was able to make something, I chose the easiest thing because the stars being cut kept ripping the sheets so this design only had three. This was all I was able to make. One red white and blue pennant. The large white design in the background came out really easy but it was a simple design so I think these might be good for some large plain flowers or something. I was really hoping they would work because some of them have some great designs on them. Oh well. Also for those of you wondering how they taste?- They taste sort of like the fondant plain and sweet. I guess I should stick with fondant from now on unless I get a great deal on them and decide to go for it again. Thanks everyone and remember my contest is ending soon. I am so excited! June 30th Yippee!!

I absolutely love the Best Of Pixar Cricut Cartridge!

Hi!  Hope everyone had a great weekend I know i did.  Another cake this weekend -Yay!  Well I actually baked all day on Saturday because I contributed to a local bake sale that is involved with our school system.  I made a red velvet cake with butter cream icing since I sent the last one to work with my husband and never got to try it.  I also tried something different this week.  I bought a cake decorating set and decided to try to do a scallop decoration for the edges.  Wow, that was hard and didn't exactly come out right but it was my first time so...I need practice.  I made a finding Nemo cake.  I made the nemo at 4 and a half inches and he cake out huge.  I love the movie Finding Nemo.  It always reminds me of my eight year old son. He is at the age where he wants more independence and I am sometimes too over protective with him.  Its so hard to let them do things when you are scared.

Anyway, making this cake was fun and easy.  Three colors orange, black, and white. I used Wilton fondants again. This time I mixed my own colors for the orange.  First I cut out the black back ground.  That was the easy part.  Next I cut out the orange part.  Parts of nemo are very intricate so I decided to try a tip that someone mentioned to me about putting the mat with the cutout fondant on it in the freezer for a couple of minutes and it worked great.  It made it alot easier to get off the mat.  Next i cut out the white eyes and stripes and put them on and it was done.  I imagine that I could have made this cake alot better.  Maybe I could have sprayed the background with a blue color spray, and made Nemo smaller and added some other characters, or even shells.  As usual my kids and husband LOVED IT.  This is a great cartridge, especially if you are thinking about making a child's birthday cake.

Win a New Disney Classics Cricut Cartridge!

It's our first Contest! 

I thought a contest might be fun for all the people who are checking in on my blog once in a while, so here it is.  I am giving away a new Disney Classics Cricut Cartridge!  To enter all you have to do is follow my blog, and post a comment.  Thats it! 
 
The contest will end on June 30th and I will post the winner on July 1st so please check back to see if you won! Good Luck!

Happy Mothers day!

Hello everyone! Hope you all had a great Mother's Day? Did anyone go out for a nice dinner or have one cooked for you? Well I didn't-lol.  I cooked as I usually do and I made a cake too.  It was a Lemon cake with classic lemon curd filling, and lemon icing. Yum, its still in the fridge and i had a slice for breakfast with some coffee.  I decorated it with fondant using the Cricut Cartridge Simply Charmed.  This cartridge is adorable.  There is something for almost every holiday and they all look so cute and cheerful.  I loved decorating this cake.  It was alot easier except for the fact that one of my fondants were sort of hard so I put it in the microwave for about 15 seconds and it surely made it soft and extremely hot to touch-ouch!  It was definitely a learning experience :) Anyway I had a very light pink fondant so for the next color I mixed a little bit of red fondant with it and made a darker pink.  Also as I cut each layer I put them on parchment paper to put together when I was all finished.  I love this cartridge and this design only used 3 different colors of fondant so I made it really quick.  I made each heart at 3 1/4 inches and the phrase at 4 inches.  This cartridge has many phrases, the one I chose-  Happy mothers day isn't what came on the page with the hearts but I liked them all together better.  Also the phrase was alot easier to get off the mat because it is chunkier font. You have to check out this cartridge if you don't have it because it will make some great seasonal cakes. 

Lets learn together!

Hello!  Welcome to The Ultimate Cakeover. My name is Jamie and I had this idea that when I got my Cricut cake machine it might be fun to do a cake each week and blog about it.  This is my first blog so I plan to have fun with it.  Let me start by telling you a little about myself.  I am 35, I am married to a wonderful man who is 36 and we have 3 children (two boys ages 1 and 8, and a girl who is 4)  My life is very busy even though I am a stay at home mom.  I love to bake and I always decorate a cake at each holiday.  I have done it for so long now that at every holiday or birthday my family almost expects it.  My husband and I each come from large families (4 siblings in my family and 6 siblings in his!) so we have huge holidays and alot of birthdays and that's alot of cakes.  When I saw the cricut cake machine come out I instantly fell in love.  I had the cricut expression so I knew what it does and I have alot of great cartridges so I was so excited about what I can do with fondant now.  I have two cakes to post pictures of. One is a Monkey cake because my 4 year old loves monkeys and begged me to make one.  So I had seen this awesome recipe on the Martha Stewart Show for Chocolate cake and I made her Monkey cake using the Create a Critter Cartridge and some ready made fondant that I purchased from Michael's Crafts and rolled out on my mat.  It was hard getting the layers off the mat without breaking them. My next cake I posted is a dinosaur cake.  I made it for practice and sent it to work with my husband.  The designs are from the Birthday Cakes cartridge and I made each dino at 2 and a half inches.  I wanted to fit everything that the cartridge had to offer for dinosaurs on the cake but I didn't want the dinosaurs to be too small.  I couldn't fit everything so I did three dinos, the phrase that went with them, and a couple of footprints. I also made them and then place each layer on a paper plate this time while I made the others and it hardened the fondant a little so that it was easier to pick up and put together.  I also purchased a few small spatulas from Michael's and they definately helped.  This cake was pretty easy because I only needed two colors.  I didn't cover either cake with fondant and chose to just put the decorations onto buttercream icing because my husband perfers icing over fondant. Fondant usually doesn't taste that good, and also its pretty expensive buying it already made so I might try making my own next time because I saw a recipe for marshmallow fondant and I think it may taste better then the one I bought from Michaels. So, neither cake came out how I envisioned them and I keep thinking I can do better so hopefully each week I will get better. If you follow along with me maybe we can get better together and share ideas. Have a great week!