This week we celebrated 3 family members graduating from college. What an exciting time! It was so surreal for me to graduate from college. To think I was done with school. That I may never go back (I think I might someday, but at the time I wasn’t sure). After 18 years (I did 5 years in college) you now have a Bachelor’s Degree. There’s never a time like when you were in college. Here’s a picture of my graduation from Brigham Young University in 2010. I still look the same, right? 🙂
To help my family celebrate, I made some graduation cupcakes! You can use any kind of cupcake and frosting, but I’ll share my lemon cupcakes with fresh strawberry frosting below because they’re fantastic! I assembled graduation caps and diplomas and then put them on top of the frosting to make these tasty graduation cupcakes.
What You Need
Square chocolate or cookie – on the websites where I did my research, I found that most people thought that Ghiradelli chocolates were too big. So some people melted chocolate into a square mold. I used cookies which we thought were square, but when I opened the package they were actually rectangles. So I just cut them down, but if you can find a square chocolate cookie, I think that would be best.
Candy – I had a bag of mixed chocolates (I sent my husband to do the shopping and this is what he found. 🙂 ). They had mini Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, Rolos, and Hershey kisses. I used them all and they all worked great. You just need to cut the tips off of the kisses. So it’s just a matter of preference.
Round candy – We found sour punch bites that were rolled that I used. You can use any type of candy that you can roll or that already comes in a roll.
M&M minis – For the button on top of the cap. This is optional, but I thought it was cute.
Frosting – To “glue” the candy together. I also used a Wilton tip 1 (really small) to pipe on the details.
Once you have your ingredients, use frosting to attach the bottom of the cap to the top, pipe on a tassel, and place a mini m&m on top. Then pipe a bow on the diploma and stick them on the frosting to create graduation cupcakes. That’s it! So cute right?
Here’s another “sweet” and simple graduation gift.
And as promised, here’s the recipe for my Strawberry Lemon cupcakes. Definitely one of my favorite recipes.
Strawberry Lemon Cupcakes
Ingredients
Lemon Cupcake
- 1 ¾ cup all purpose flour
- ½ tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp baking soda
- ½ tsp salt
- ½ cup butter
- 1 ¼ cup granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 3 tbsp fresh lemon juice Squeezed lemon if you can. Also works with store bought lemon juice.
- 1 tsp lemon zest
- ¾ cup buttermilk or 2 tsp lemon juice in 3/4 cup milk (let sit for at least 5 mins)
Strawberry Frosting
- 1 cup butter softened
- 3 ½ cups powdered sugar
- ½ tsp vanilla extract
- 3 tbsp pureed strawberries make by pureeing 1/2 cup of strawberries
- 1 pinch salt
Instructions
Lemon Cupcakes
- Preheat the oven to 400° F. Line muffin tins with 15-18 cupcake liners (mine made 18).
- Whisk together flour, baking powder, and baking soda. Set aside.
- In a stand mixer, beat the butter on low until it's soft. Then add the sugar and beat until fluffy for about 4 minutes.
- Add eggs one at a time, beating until mixed after each egg.
- Add the lemon juice and zest and beat until mixed. The mixture will look curdled.
- Add the flour in three additions, alternating with the buttermilk, beginning and ending with the flour. Scrape the bowl, then mix on low until just combined.
- Fill each cupcake liner ⅔ full. Bake for 13-16 minutes and check for doneness by inserting a toothpick into the center and it comes out clean. Allow them to cool completely before frosting.
Strawberry Frosting
- Beat the butter until light and fluffy.
- Add the powdered sugar, salt, strawberry puree, and vanilla. Beat until fluffy. Then pipe onto the cupcakes.