You may have noticed that I’ve been a bit distant in the past week… You’re not just imagining it! I have neglected to update my Project 365 photos on Flickr, I haven’t been posting as much, and I haven’t been keeping up with everyone’s tweets! I do have a good reason, though… I was working on a bit of a project!
While we were in Cape Cod, a friend asked if I would make a cake for her daughter’s graduation party (which was on Saturday). Of course, I agreed… We decided to go with a small cookie cake that displayed the grad’s interests and hobbies to be the centerpiece for the dessert table. To make things easy at the party, I also made cupcakes decorated with small cookies so that we wouldn’t have to bother with dismantling/cutting the cake.
If you did catch me on Twitter last week, most likely I was tweeting about the cake or the cookies. And, I know a lot of you wanted to see the pictures of the finished cake. It’s only fair, right? After all, many of you have helped me through the various steps along the way! So, even though I don’t have a recipe to go along with this post today, I thought I’d share some pictures of the finished cookie cake and cupcakes!
The school colors were orange and black, but I couldn’t imagine having cookies that were all orange and black, so I decided to do a white base of flood icing on the cookies (some outlined in black) and then decorate and incorporate orange and black in the decorations.
To decorate the cake, I made large round cookies and painted pictures to represent the grad’s favorite things, interests, activities, and hobbies from high school… Music, fashion, sports, drama, and even her favorite Bible verse!
I found this great video over at University of Cookie about painting on cookies with food coloring. If you’re interested in painting cookies, I recommend that you check it out. This was the first time that I have attempted to paint on cookies, so I was fairly happy with the results. As you can guess, my favorite is the Coach bag cookie!
I also found some cute graduation themed cookie cutters, so I made a few more traditional graduation cookies to go with the cake!
The cake was a two-tier vanilla cake with 6-inch and 9-inch tiers. I had originally made fondant to cover the cake, but I wasn’t thrilled with how it turned out, so I decided to just use traditional buttercream instead. Not the smoothest cake I’ve ever seen, but much better than some of the cakes I’ve done in the past. It’s all about practice, right? For the cupcakes, I did vanilla, red velvet (with cream cheese icing, of course), and chocolate – close to 7 dozen in total!
To top the cupcakes, I made little circle cookie that said ‘2010’… Not the brightest design idea on my part for a few reasons. First, I am AWFUL at piping circles, and I did about 8 dozen of them. Second, I chose to pipe the circles in black which made my poor piping skills stand out. Third, I had to pipe ‘2010’ about 8 dozen times (although, that wasn’t nearly as bad as the circles). If someone can recommend where to find a nice set of square cookie cutters, I would be very grateful!
In the end, I was fairly happy with how the cake turned out. More importantly, everyone at the party loved the cake (including the grad and her mom, which made me happy!).
If you want to see some more photos of the cake/cookies/cupcakes (plus larger versions of the photos in this post), you can find them over on my Flickr page… And no, I am still not caught up with Project 365!
Awful piping skills? Where? Silly girl, these are fabulous! :) And the painting? All that time – I bow to you. What a lucky graduate.
I applaud you! Truly! That was a mammoth project to take on and you did it! And, you did it very well! I know just how much hard work you put in on this, and how much sweat was poured while doing it!
Congratulations! Job well done!!!
Wow I am blown away – it looks great, Jen! I would never have the patience to do something like that. I really think it looks fabulous!
Great job! What a fun cake!
Jen that is SO COOL! I am so impressed with your talents and creativity. I wish you could have made my graduation cake 11 years ago :)
Great job! I love the whole presentation. Makes me want to bake something this week. :)
Great job – what an undertaking!!
Jen, everything looks fantastic! Quite the undertaking indeed… :)
Oh my Jen…such detail. You’re quite talented and what a fantastic job you did with this cake!
Absolutely gorgeous! I am so impressed! I don’t exactly see where you have “awful” piping skills, though…I think everything turned out beautifully. Well done!
Wow – I am very impressed, that table looks FABULOUS! I know how much work goes into a project like this, I bet you’re glad it’s done! :)
WOW, waiting for you to post this was certainly worth it. You did an outstanding job Jen. Big job completed with an even bigger heart! Thank you for posting everything.
That is adorable. I liked that you added cupcakes too.
Wonderful cake and cookies! great job.
One thing is more beautiful than the next. You’re so talented.
Wow, that are all so cute…really enjoy going through the pictures…beautifully done :-)
Wow! That’s a lot of detail for cookies! Fantastic job! Nothing helps you learn like making many, many dozens! We have a set of Ateco square cutters that has 6 sizes. If they’re not at your local bakeshop, go online to Country Kitchen Sweet Art or Amazon.
LOVE!! You have stirred my baking/cake decorating bug. I was known for that for years and now rarely do any decorating-time to make a change!
So cute! I love cookie cakes.
Jen it is absolutely stunning! You could sell your creations hey are so professional!
I don’t think these photos do the cake/cookies justice. I saw these creations at the party and they were beautiful. I ate one of the cupcake/cookie combos….yummy! I guess I know who to call in two years when all three of my kids graduate from college/grad school!
Very impressive display! I love all of the surrounding cupcakes!
Jen, I just wanted to post here our deep appreciation for this cake. We are the blessed friends that this cake was made for and we were absolutely blown away with how amazing it was! Every part of it was delicious and won great reviews from all our friends and family! Thanks again for your willingness to take on this project!
Jen…you are Wonder Woman!!!!! Everything…the cake, the cupcakes, the COOKIES….everything is beautiful and perfect! Wow! I’m tired just looking at it because I know how many HOURS (and hours) went into that.
Beautiful work!
Jen, this cookie cake is so, so, so cute! You did a wonderful job incorporating the grads favorite things into one truly spectacular centerpiece. Bravo! I’m even more excited that you learned your cookie painting skills from me on my video at UofC. I’m glad that video was helpful in your making such a wonderful work of art. Kudos to you Jen!
Where did you get those cool cupcake double-tier baking pans?
Hi, Ruth –
The double tier pan is actually just a single muffin baking pan with an additional tier for storage (and a lid)… I bought it at a kitchen outlet, but you can find it on Amazon.