My first cake

Are you all enjoying Beth's design. Tomorrow is Joy's turn. So tune in.
Just wanted to share this

We are not big cake eaters  and neither am I a baker. All I have baked are some vegetable puffs and Indian potato filled buns and to date - baked eggless brownies - 5 times and cakes - 7 times where 3 were from the box , 2 were fruit cakes and 2 times eggless white cakes from condensed milk. So what am I doing with a cake machine. Guess I hit my head somewhere lol.
Well anyway here is my first attempt. Surprisingly many people were having problems but my cut came out good
How good I am - ha ha - see for yourself
went shopping and only materials available as no  cake shops nearby and online orders yet to come and will easily take a week. . So got the wilton materials at joanns and micheals (coupon from joann applied at micheals - saved me tons on tools.
My stash

So baked a cake - which was not good. My own recipe would have been much better. This had overdried and was crumbly and not moist. But so what - first attempt so persevered. I purchased icing making note not to get the whipped variety. Then thinking gum paste would be better I put it in bread machine. Here is where i should either get glasses or get an award for brainiac - lol- I read 1/4 cup as 1 and 1/4 cup and added that and was staring and wondering how come it is not solidifying.
So there went my gum paste idea.
Ok then comes fondant. Thankfully I had the rolled fondant - so I took it out kneaded it a bit. It felt dry so dipped my hands in a little bit of crisco and kneaded it.  I had the brilliant idea of kneading in some of the excess waste gum paste liquidy goo into the fondant. I will bottle the rest to apply over the fondant. See either eat your mistake or make something else out of it. Then  put a towel below the plastic mat and placed the fondant and rolled. The towel gives a little bit of give. This is how we roll chapathi's our Indian bread. so rolled. I did not want to cover the cake with that.and did not care if the icing on the cake would have much to be desired as I just wanted to test the cuts. After maybe taking a cake class I will bother about all this. Covering the icing over the cake as best as I can to cover up the grand canyon rift which had apeared in the cake - ha ha was tricky but I cemented it on.
Then I applied shortening on the cake mat and wiped excess with a towel and placed the fondant over the mat.. It sat while I updated the cake firmware with my G and then I cut the white fondant out. Note I will not start cutting intricate images just yet. This image is 3 inch in height and I used the G to cut. Surprisingly the G is slower with the cake and did not zoom.

A flower

Just the fondant to show you that it is not ultra thin. But just like we would brayer the paper on to the mat I did smooth out the fondant onto the mat with viva towel.

Ok - now what. I got good cuts but I wanted color so I just took a brush and even though this is not the way to do it. I brushed it on the fondant after diluting it a bit with the sticky gum paste mess.
Ha ha.

Then I tried my hand at piping. I had the icing in a tube and no clue as to which shape does what so I just had fun.My son joined in and he did some and I did some. Just for the heck of it added some edible pearls. You know how I like pearls so why should I spare the cake any. So blingified the cake a bit..We sure did have fun. here is the nightmarish cake - lol

Well end result
Cricut cake - cuts good
Cake itself - well... I need a cake lesson pronto - both in baking, setting the oven , icing etc etc. But it was fun