Greetings from Bikini Bottom

Don't let it be said that I won't rise to a challenge........with that being said, I also am notorious for biting off far more than I can chew! Cricutmachine.com was running a Black Friday special (have I mentioned that I'm a sucker for a good Black Friday special?)and they were selling the Cricut Cake for $49.95. My intention was to make this a fabulous Christmas gift to a well deserving friend, but another good friend, and an incredible enabler, pointed out that this could be the gift that kept on giving......so I kept it! Not only did I keep it, but upon receiving it, I committed to make the cake for a friends upcoming Baby Shower. Sooooooooo.....8 weeks, 15 Spongebob episodes, 100 youtube video tutorial hours, 10 trips to JoAnn's, Michael's and Hobby Lobby and 6 trials in my test kitchen later. This is my very first cake!

Now, I really hadn't given much thought to the cake itself. I figured all I needed was to pick a flavor. Boy was I wrong. My first cake was just out of the box. It literally crumbled apart when I attempted to level it. So it was back to the internet (and some more tutorials) where I found designmeacake.com. I made her White Almond Sour Cream Cake and almost fell on the floor when I tasted it. Not only did it taste good, it cut like a dream. My first filling was the Wilton White Decorator Icing, I don't recommend it. It was FAR too sweet and really tasted greasy. So....back to the internet! I settled on a Nutella Buttercream Filling. Now that I had the cake set.....off to the work on the fun stuff, the decorations! The theme for the shower was Spongebob Squarepants, so I went to my Spongebob Cartridge and started planning the cuts that I'd be making on my new Cricut Cake!!!! 3 days before the shower, I started making my cake toppers. After watching a few episodes of the cartoon, I decided on an Island scene for the top of the cake. I used gumpaste to make the crab and gumpaste wrapped dowels to make the palm trees. The fronds were cut from the Cricut Life's a Beach cartridge.

The day before the shower I made the cakes, covered them with fondant and cut out all of my pieces on my Cricut Cake. I arrived a couple of hours before the party and put on the final touches.

The sand on the top is brown sugar and all the pieces were "glued" on with gumpaste dissolved in some water and applied with a paintbrush. The Mom-to-be seemed to be pleased with my cake. Just gave me the motivation to start planning my next one. Possibly something for Valentines Day???.......