Congrats, Class of 2012!

This month, I’ve had the privilege of making cake for two graduation parties. One was a large sheet cake, and the other was a hat-shaped cupcake cake. I had a blast brainstorming the cakes, putting everything together and baking up a storm!

For the first party, I made a four-layer sheet cake, covered in lemon Swiss meringue buttercream. Class colors were gold, green and purple, so I used gold buttercream for the writing and detail piping, with green and purple sprinkles for a little extra pop. Inside, the left half of the cake was lemon, with a lemon curd filling. The other half of the cake was raspberry, with a mixed berry curd filling. Everyone loved it, and there wasn’t any left by the end of the party! (A big thanks to Andy, who helped me haul this cake in and out of the fridge multiple times… this one was a beast!)

 

Please ignore my slightly-out-of-perspective picture. I need a wide-angle lens for one this big, I think.

For the cupcake cake, I made Annie’s vanilla bean cupcakes with my new favorite frosting – chocolate cream cheese frosting. Karen and I shaped the cupcakes into a mortarboard, then topped them with a licorice rope tassel. For the accent cupcakes, I made chocolate cupcakes with a quick buttercream frosting. I used the cake base from Annie’s Smores cupcakes (my favorite chocolate cake).

Class colors were black and red, and to avoid using an entire bottle of food coloring, I used red cupcake liners for all of the cupcakes and dotted the tops with red sprinkles. (Because sprinkles make everything a little happier.) And a few lucky cupcakes were topped with graduation picks.

And it’s slightly out of focus, but hey, it was 10:30 at night when we finished!

 

Why hello, super-tasty chocolate frosting.

 

So, here’s a big congrats to the class of 2012! Thanks for giving me an excuse to try some new recipes and techniques in the kitchen! Way to go! (And way to make me feel incredibly old…) 

 

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