How to Decorate Your Own Graduation Cake

Celebrate your graduation with a homemade cake.

Getting ready for your graduation party can be hectic enough without having to worry about decorating your own cake, but if you do decide to take on this task you can keep it simple while still creating a cake that will impress your guests. Before you begin decorating, make sure that you choose a cake that is large enough to feed everyone who will come to celebrate your big day. If necessary, you can arrange two or more rectangular cakes on a large cake board. Once you cover them with icing, they will look like one big cake.

Things You'll Need

• Icing of your choice, enough to cover the cake
• Photo
• Clear packing tape
• White icing
• Cereal bowls
• Liquid food coloring
• Resealable sandwich bags

Instructions

1. Cover the entire cake with your favorite type of icing. You can add your school colors to the decorations but using your favorite type of icing on the entire cake ensures that it will taste just as good as it looks.

2. Laminate one of your wallet-sized graduation photos. You can take the photo to a copy shop to get it laminated or sandwich it between pieces of clear packing tape. If you don't have graduation photos, you can use any picture of yourself.

3. Place the laminated photo on the center of your cake and press it down gently so it sticks to the icing.

4. Divide a container of white icing into two cereal bowls.

5. Tint the white icing to match your school colors using liquid food coloring. Add a few drops of food coloring at a time and stir it into the icing until you are satisfied with the colors.

6. Spoon the icing from each bowl into a resealable sandwich bag. You now have two sandwich bags, each containing one color of icing.

7. Snip one corner of each sandwich bag to create a very small hole.

8. Hold one bag with both hands and squeeze out a line of icing around the edge of the photo and the edge of the cake to create a border. Repeat this process with the second bag of icing.

9. Write your name on the cake along with a message such as "Congratulations" or "Class of 2011" with the remaining tinted icing.

Tips & Warnings

• Remove the laminated photo from the cake before you begin to cut and serve it.

References

• "Cake Decorating!"; Wilton; 2004
• "Hello, Cupcake!"; Karen Tack and Alan Richardson; 2008