How I Made Graduation Hat Cake

by Marilyn Francis
(LA)

Making this graduation hat cake was a real fun!



1. Where the idea come from

I saw this cake on your site and fell in love :-)
instantly!


My family has a very long tradition of organizing graduation parties every time when any family member graduates high school.

Since I have some skills in baking cakes I am always in charge to make graduation cake. I enjoy making my own cakes because it allows me to be sure about the quality and freshness of the ingredients used to make up the cake.


I like cakes to be fresh and tasty. This idea was accepted by other family members who were involved in party organization and I was very happy about it since I like baking cakes and making interesting cake designs.



Some family members wanted to buy a cake for graduation party but I didn't like the idea. My idea was to have homemade cake. I like this family tradition, which is present in our family for a long time.



2. What was the occasion (describe the event and how the cake was accepted by the guests)



Last summer, my sister's son graduated high school and we decided to make him graduation party as we always do.


I had to choose the design for the cake to fit the occasion. After having some thoughts I decided to make the cake in the shape of book and graduation hat on top of it. Why book and graduation hat?


Well, my sister's son spent a lot of time with books learning, and graduation hats are the symbol of graduation and I thought that this design would be appropriate for this special occasion.


All the guests were amazed with the look of my cake, they all congratulate me for my skill saying that my cake was not only beautiful but also was very tasty. I was very satisfied with this cake. It took me some time to make as I wanted to look perfect



3. Recipe-how it tasted (preferably original made from scratch)



Ingredients for the first layer:


5 egg whites
5 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons flour
20ml oil
3 tablespoons walnuts


Ingredients for the second layer:



7 egg yolks
5 tablespoons sugar
4 tablespoons flour
5 tablespoons ground walnuts
1 teaspoon baking powder
3 tablespoons cocoa powder



Ingredients for cream:



3 eggs
2 egg yolks
50 grams chocolate
50ml milk
170 grams butter



Directions for the first layer:




1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease 8x16 inches rectangular pan.
2. Beat egg whites with an electrical mixer with sugar.
3. Add flour, oil, and chopped walnuts. Mix well.
4. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake it for about 35 min. or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean.
5. Remove it from the oven and place it on the rack to cool.
6. Bake two layers of these ingredients.




Directions for the second layer:




1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease 8 inches round pan.
2. Beat egg yolks with sugar.
3. Add flour, ground walnuts, baking powder, and cocoa powder. Mix all ingredients well.
4. Pour the mixture into the prepared round pan and bake it for about 30 min. or until a toothpick inserted in the cake comes out clean.
5. Remove the layer from the oven and place it on the rack to cool completely.
6. Bake two layers of these ingredients.



Directions for the cream:




1. Mix eggs, egg yolks, melted chocolate and milk.
2. Cook this mixture on steam until thicken.
3. When this mixture thickened, cool it completely.
4. When cooled add whisked butter and beat all well until creamy.
5. Make double measure of the cream for the bottom and the upper layers.



4. Decorating tips




When the layers and the cream were cooled completely, I started with decorating the cake. First, I placed a rectangle layer on the bottom, greased it with chocolate cream.


Then I put another rectangle layer. I covered these layers with fondant colored in beige color. The three sides of the book I covered with white fondant and I used the toothpick to draw thin lines to look like book leaves.


On the edges of the book, I used royal icing to make curves. As royal icing is white, I tinted it in beige color to match the cake. I made royal icing myself out of egg whites, lemon juice and icing sugar.



In a large bowl, I put two egg whites, 50 grams of icing sugar and 1 teaspoon of lemon juice and beat ingredients until combined. When combined I put the food coloring and colored the icing in beige color, put it into the icing bag, piped the letters, and wrote "congratulations".



When I finished the "book" I put on it the first round layer, greased it with the prepared cream, put another layer and put cream so that one side is higher than the other.



I covered these layers with chocolate fondant. On top of it I set the smaller rectangle layer slightly askew which was also covered with chocolate fondant.



Then I made tassel out of white modeling chocolate which I colored in beige color and the end of the tassel I colored the modeling chocolate in black and placed it on top of the hat. Around the bottom of the hat (the round layer), I put the stripe made of chocolate fondant to edge the graduation hat.