Graduation Cupcakes

Henry's sister, Emily, graduated this December, and I knew there had to be some sort of celebratory goodie! Since I can't get enough of the red velvet cake recipe, I decided to make her some cupcakes using the same recipe. Though they weren't exactly the hit I had hoped, the idea behind them was pretty cool.

The cupcakes and the icing are the same as the previous red velvet cake recipe, but I added a few things on top! As you can probably tell from the picture above, I added graduation hats on top. These hats are 100% edible and really yummy! I got the chocolate squares from Ghirardelli using the dark chocolate mint and milk chocolate squares.
Underneath those chocolate squares are Reese's peanut butter cups that are turned upside down.

As you can see, I used a dollop of icing to secure the chocolate square to the peanut butter cup. On top of the chocolate square, I used a Dr. Pepper Jelly Belly since that jelly belly was the most maroon looking jelly belly to match Texas A&M! I also used a small amount of icing and died it yellow to create the tassle on each of the chocolate squares.

The result came out better than I thought, and it was a lot of fun to make them!