Cake Creator

At Cake and Ice we love it when our customers suggest ideas for new cupcake flavors, and if any of you have ever had a cake consultation for ordering a customized cake, you know that we love it when you come in with pictures and ideas. Since we love your creative input so much we wanted to create a way to see and understand all of your ideas in one place. So we decided to join the 21st century and create an app! That's right Cake and Ice now has it's very own app.

The Cake Creator app includes:

• A cake creator, which allows you to design cakes and cupcakes which could be made into the cupcake of the week!
• A share and vote section: this is where you share your cupcake creations, and other app users can see and vote for them to become the cupcake of the week!
• The suggestion box is where you can submit you flavor ideas for new cake and frosting ideas!

We are excited to see what you come up with, and bring it to life as the cupcake of the week! The first week of each month the person who designs the cupcake with the most votes will have their 

design brought to life and it will be sold in the store for a week! The creator will also get a free dozen cupcakes to share with family and friends!

Download the app to see all of the awesome features. It is easy to find on both Google Play and iTunes, just search "Cake and Ice" or "Cake Creator" and look for our logo!

Birthdays and Appreciation Giveaways

It is crazy how fast time flies! This month on the 19th marks one year since the opening of Cake and Ice. I can't even believe it! And the thing I keep coming back to over and over again, is the enormous amount of love and support we have gotten from our customers and the Chippewa Valley community as a whole. So for our "birthday" we are giving back and saying thank you to all of the people that have made our business a success--that's you! So we are going crazy with free cake giveaways!

Since our "birthday" is in the month of April, and April is the fourth month of the year, we are saying thank you in four ways!

Now, April 12, 2015 through April 19, 2015:

1. Receive 19% off of any orders over $50.

2. Stop in to the shop and be randomly selected to take home a free 12" round cake! (We will randomly giving away 19 cakes this week. That is more than 2 cakes a day!)

3. Stop in and enter to win a free Cake and Ice Cake Party!

4. Stop in on April 19th from 12-2 and receive a free cupcake to celebrate our birthday!

We are really going all out to say thank you to all of our amazing customers and to all of our future customers. Now is a great time to come down and try us out if you haven't already. We really couldn't do what we do without all of you! Thank you so much for accepting Cake and Ice into the Chippewa Valley. We appreciate your business!

https://ilovecococakes.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/thank-you-cupcake.gif

April Showers

You know the old adage, "April showers bring May flowers," well did you know that April is also good for trees and the environment? April is 'Keep America Beautiful' month, and both Arbor Day and Earth Day fall in the month of April.

At Cake and Ice we want to do our part to 'Keep America Beautiful'. We already recycle, but we are starting a new initiative this April to compost in our shop! Plus through the entire month of April we will have Earthcakes available for sale, and we will be donating 100% of the proceeds to Keep American Beautiful and all of the wonderful work they are doing. Check out their website: http://www.kab.org/ and let us know your ideas to 'Keep America Beautiful'!

http://birdonacake.blogspot.com/2012/04/earth-day-cupcakes.html

In other exciting news, Cake and Ice will be releasing our very first commercial! We are letting all of our loyal readers see a sneak peek here: http://youtu.be/KAd3ogaq3LE 

Hop On Over To Facebook!

Easter is only one week away, and I've been scouring the Internet for fun Easter cake and cupcake ideas. Along the way I found some pretty "interesting" photos of people with the Easter Bunny, which ultimately led me to this video, and the Bunny Contest was born!

Here are the rules to enter the Bunny Contest:

1. Find your best picture of you or a loved one with the Easter Bunny.

2. Share it to Cake and Ice's Facebook page by 11:59 p.m. on Thursday, April 2nd. 

3. Wait patiently for us to announce the winner on Friday, April 3rd at 9:00 a.m.

The Prize:

A $25 Cake and Ice gift certificate!

Seriously though guys check out this super creepy Easter Bunny video, and then share your best Easter Bunny pictures with us! We can't wait to see them!

Smash Cakes and Podcasts and Sales, Oh My!

Exciting news! Cake and Ice just finished recording our first podcast. I interviewed my husband Al, who helps out a ton at the shop. We also talk about smash cakes. For those of you that don't know what a smash cake is, check out the podcast to learn all about it!

Even more exciting news! Now through the end of March, Cake and Ice is running a sale on smash cakes! If you order your babies birthday cake from us, we will make a complimentary smash cake for free! You only have a week to book these cakes, but we book cakes 12 months out. So stop in today to take advantage of this great deal!

A Wilton World

Cake and Ice is definitely living in a Wilton World. You might know that I started out only three short years ago as a novice at home cake decorator. I used websites like Wilton to answer all of my questions and to figure out many new techniques. Our shop is filled with tons of Wilton products, because that is what I learned to decorate with, and they are the standard in this industry. This week I thought Cake and Ice should be giving back to the community that really helped get us started. Now we are proud to say that we are connected on wilton.com to the rest of the decorating world!

Wilton's website is not only a great place to find ideas for cakes, but also to ask questions, get  answers, and review new products. Whether you are a do-it-yourselfer, novice cake decorator like I once was, a person in the market for a cake decorator, or an experienced professional Wilton's site is a great way to share ideas and learn new techniques.

I invite you all to check out the Wilton site, create an account, and connect with all of the decorators. Click here to play a quick video of how to navigate Wilton's website. Whether you are our customer or not, we want to be able to help you get your dream cake. So sign up and we will start answering your questions!

Buttercream Ruffle Cake-2013

Click here to learn the ruffle technique featured in the picture above!

In Cahoots

February is soon coming to an end, which means March is almost here. If March is almost here then that means it is almost time to celebrate St. Paddy's Day! Whether you are Irish or not, this holiday sure is a fun excuse to go out donning your best green shirt and drink all the beer!

Cake and Ice is very excited for St. Paddy's Day this year, because we are in cahoots with the Chippewa Valley's own Brown Bottle Delivery Co to create a new cupcake. This is not just any cupcake; it's a beer cupcake! What could be better than beer and cake? Ummm nothing! At least that is what we think, but you be the judge.

The new Brown Bottle Cupcake will be released on 

St. Paddy's Day (Tuesday, March 17th) at Cake and Ice.

Clearwater Edible Book Festival

Hello Everyone!

We are busy as ever over here at Cake and Ice. With Valentine's Day landing on a Saturday this year it kept us busy all week, and on top of that we have begun preparations for the Clearwater Edible Book Festival (click the link for more details)! For those of you that follow us on Twitter you might already know what I am talking about.

This year we set a goal for ourselves to push our business past just being a bakery; instead we want to be active community members that make Eau Claire a better place to live. That is why we created the Cake Decorating Party Program, which we have mentioned before in posts and on Twitter. It is also why we decided to enter this local cake decorating competition. It will be at the L.E. Phillips Memorial Library, here in Eau Claire next Saturday (February 21, 2015). I am very excited, because this is the first time we have ever entered into any type of competition.

The awesome thing about this competition is that it is based on books! I am a huge fan of reading, and think it is so important to engage and activate our imaginations through books. After much deliberation and design sketching we made our book selection and announced it last week. For those of you who didn't see the tweet, we decided to create a book based on The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. The cake is going to look like a book, but with a fun surprise! Here are some of the images we used for inspiration.

We hope to see you all next weekend, to support the cake artists, the library, and our community!

Puppy Fever!

Hi everyone!

Sorry my post is a little later than normal this week, but that is because there is some pretty crazy exciting stuff going on in my life. My husband and I are in the process of purcahseing our first home. Really exciting stuff! So naturally I've already began decorating it in my head. Aside from finally being homeowners, we are super excited that we will finally be able to get a dog. We have wanted one since we started dating, but with living in apartments, we didn't want to compromise our future with the pup. So naturally I've also been scouring rescue organizations websites in search of the perfect dog for us.

Late one night as I was looking at endless pictures of adorable puppies, who just want to be loved, I thought to myself, "What can Cake and Ice do to find these pups forever homes?" The next day I contacted my friend Becky, who owns her own animal rescue, Becky's Breeds. I told her I wanted to help, and that I had a great idea. We talked it over and ironed out all the details, and voila, Puppy Cupcakes were born!

Through the month of February Cake and Ice will be making delicious peanut butter cupcakes for the dog in your life (or for you, they are just peanut butter so they are safe for humans too, and really delicious). All of the proceeds from these cupcakes will go to help support the wonderful work Becky is doing at Becky's Breeds.

So if you love your dog, and think that every animal deserves to be loved, stop in through the month of February and get your pups a scrumptious treat and help save the lives of animals! 

Check out Becky's Breeds and all the great work they are doing here: http://bbrescue.blogspot.com/

Disclaimer: Image used in poster is not owned by Cake and Ice. It is used on behalf of the fake business to promote a fake campaign. Image source: http://urbanbakes.com/peanut-butter-pupcakes/

Cake and Ice Open House: February 7th from 4-8!

Mark your calendars for Saturday February 7th from 4-8 pm!

We are having an open house, and we want all of you to attend! This is a great opportunity to stop in and see what Cake and Ice is all about. We will be featuring a cake decorating competition to endorse our new Birthday Party Program**! 

You must pre-register if you want to be a part of the cake decorating fun. We will be having a division for families, individual adults, teens, and kids (age 8-12). The cake, frosting, and all the decorating supplies will be provided. Again, you must call to pre-register by February 5th, if you want to be a decorator! This is very important so that we can have enough cakes on hand. 

When all of the decorating is finished, the open house attendees will be able to vote for their favorite in each division. The winner from each age group will receive a special prize; plus, all competitors get to take their cakes home! Judging will be at 7 pm.

Along with the decorating competition, we will have all of our cake and frosting combinations available for taste testing! Decorating consultants will be available all evening to take orders for your next event. There is no need to pre-register if you just want to stop in, visit, and observe! We hope to see you there!

One more thing, we have joined Twitter! Come follow us at https://twitter.com/CakeandIce1.

**The Birthday Party Program 

Are you ready to have the most fun birthday party ever? The Birthday Party Program here at Cake and Ice is designed to make the cake the party! Plan your next birthday party here (ages 8 and up). We supply the cakes, frosting, and all the fun decorations you could dream of to make a beautiful cake. The kids (or adults) each get to decorate their own cake or cupcake, and the best part, you get to eat them afterwards! Plus, the birthday boy or girl gets a special surprise! It is a great alternative to the traditional birthday party, and there is absolutely no mess for you to clean up at home. Contact for pricing, or stop on in!

Welcome to Cake and Ice

Attention! Put down the 9x13 cake pan and read this:

Think of all the events that traditionally feature cake in the United States: there are weddings, birthday parties, anniversary parties, retirement parties--basically every type of party! My goal as the owner of Cake and Ice is to make you think outside of the box (or let me do that for you if you live in the Eau Claire, Wisconsin area) when it comes to the cake for your next event.

My passion for cake decorating started back in 2012 when I designed my very first "out of the box" cake. It was Angry Birds themed, and it took me forever to get done! However, I stuck with it and kept trying new things, and here I am three years later running my own small business doing what I love. This blog will be a platform for me to share my experiences, my cakes, and all of the other wonderful things I have learned along the way to building my business.

My starting point--the Angry Birds cake

The Birds and Pigs were made out of cereal treats and modeling chocolate.

Use different candies and treats to build a structure on the cake.