Graduation Cakes & Cupcakes (plus How to Make Them)

Over the past few weeks, I've had several orders for graduation cakes and cupcakes... and a couple of graduation cakes, including the nursing school graduation cake. I thought I'd share them all with you today... and a few tips for making them!

First up, these (just above) were for a young woman graduating from law school at Ole Miss. She wanted simple black graduation caps and diplomas... and then some with lavender flowers because that's her favorite color.

There was one dozen lemon cupcakes and one dozen white wedding cake - both with vanilla buttercream.

For the caps, I used a black fondant (with Tylose mixed in). I made a ball for the bottom and then for the mortar board, I rolled it out and cut into squares.. and let it dry for 4-5 days.

I used my extruder to get thin ropes of yellow, then I just flattened the end and cut slits with my Xacto blade to make the tassels.

For the diplomas, I rolled out MMF in small squares, rolled them up and wrapped them with a small strand of fondant that I made using my extruder.

For the flowers, I used a flower cutter/plunger from this Wilton Gum Paste Set and lavender marshmallow fondant (MMF).

Next... this cake was for a young man graduating from high school. To make this cake, I baked two 6" round cakes and a Wilton Sports ball cake (just one half).

I stacked them up putting the half ball on top, then carving to smooth down the sides. It was pretty easy to do. Then I covered in in navy fondant (I used Americolor Navy Gel with a touch of Black).

For the mortar board, I made it from gum paste about a week ahead of time, but it still started to sag when I placed it on the cake, so it has black foam board underneath it to keep it flat and level.

Again, I used my extruder to make the tassle... I love my extruder - its on my list of favorite tools!

I also made him a dozen vanilla cupcakes... this is how the first batch ended up. Yikes.

Yeah, they fell out of my truck into a gravel parking lot when I was meeting his mom to deliver them. I was um... sad.

But I made more (in less than 2 hours) and still got them back to her before graduation that night.

On  the same night, I made 3 dozen more graduation cupcakes for another young man graduating from (my) high school.

He was a soccer player, so we incorporated soccer ball cupcake toppers. These were 2.5" circles cut from MMF and I used Americolor Food Markers to draw on the soccer ball design (don't judge... I know they aren't technically correct).

There were also graduation caps, diplomas, and then FC logo (for Franklin County High School... often called FC). I used my Ateco Alphabet Cutters for the letters.

For this larger order, I did one dozen lemon cupcakes with lemon frosting, one dozen caramel filled cupcakes with caramel frosting, and one dozen chocolate cupcakes with chocolate buttercream.

Do you have any questions about this cake or the cupcakes? Please leave them in the comments and I’ll do my best to answer and help out!