Joshua's graduation cake

Josh graduated from the University of Washington earlier this year. The morning started off with a small, intimate ceremony that only included his Materials Science and Engineering department. The department ceremony was in one of the Engineering classrooms so seating was limited. Jon and I attended along with Sara, Joshua’s darling girlfriend. After that ceremony we worked our way downtown to CenturyLink Field to meet up with the rest of the family and friends that came to watch the commencement.

Since the Husky stadium was under construction the commencement took place in the home stadium of the Seattle Seahawks. There were 5000 graduates attending commencement this year and the stadium was packed.

After attending both ceremonies, everyone met up at the house that Joshua and his friends were renting for the school year. There was plenty of food and more than enough cake. I always tend to over estimate how much I will need.

I had worked for several days on Joshua’s graduation cake. The pencil, calculator, coffee cup, and picture frame were all made a week in advance with fondant so they would have time to dry and harden up.

Each book was a different flavor of cake. The top book was a chocolate cake with a dark chocolate ganache filling. The middle book was a matcha green tea cake with a mango mousse filling. The bottom book was an Italian cream cake with a drizzle of rum.

Both the graduation cap and the coffee cup were made from the chocolate cake. The red bull can was made from the green tea cake.

I used my food grade ink jet to print the photo of Josh as well as the design on the Red Bull can and the letters on the books. I arranged everything on a board that I had covered in fondant and decorated to look like his wooden desk.

It was a bigger project than I had anticipated. I had actually planned to add a design to the top book and cut the letters out of fondant but since I was short on time I took a short cut and called it good enough. No one complained and I was the only one that knew my design was not complete…until now.