"It's A Grand Ol' Flag" Cake!

It's just a few days until we celebrate the birthday of our dear country! With it comes family, friends, fireworks, and of course, food! An old standby recipe is to bake a cake in a 9x13 pan and use whipped cream, strawberries, and blueberries to recreate the flag as a topping. It's a great, crowd-pleasing recipe, but if you're ready to try something new and surprising, here it is!

One of my favorite bloggers to read is Ashley from Make It and Love It. She always has cute things to sew, and she had this recipe a couple of weeks ago in her Make-a-Cake series. I saw it and immediately knew it had to be used this Independence Day. I made a trial version for my Bible study group and it was a hit! Here's my version: (pardon my amateur photography!)

On the outside, it looks like a plain, white layer cake. When my friends asked what kind of cake it was, I said, "oh, just a cake."


But make sure your friends are around when you first slice into it because.....


...ta-da!! It's a flag cake!

Pardon the corner crumble! It's really not too hard to make, but it isn't something you can whip up a couple hours before a cookout. With some planning you could make it in chunks over the weekend, or in its entirety the day of. The time and effort is worth the fireworks of compliments! :)

Ready for the picture tutorial to make your own? Click HERE. Read on for my own tips and modifications.

1. I used a strawberry cake mix instead of red velvet just because I love strawberry. I added red food coloring to the strawberry mix to make it a little more red than pink.

2. Most cake mixes say to add 1/3 cup of oil. Instead, add a 1/2 cup. This makes the cake very moist and delicious!

3. You may notice that Ashley's cake has five layers while mine has four. One of my strawberry layers crumbled, and I think it was because it was still too warm when I tried to take it out of the pan. Make sure you cool it quite a bit first! It didn't hurt the cake overall as four layers is still plenty!

4. I didn't have a big cookie cutter, but what worked perfectly for me was the hamburger patty form/shaper I have.

5. I also didn't have blue food gel. I used regular blue food coloring most often used for frosting. Use plenty!

6. I made the mistake of just splitting the strawberry cake batter into two pans and forgot to reserve a bit for the middle part of a layer. Don't do this!

7. Instead of freezing my layers, I chilled them in the fridge for about two hours. That worked fine.

Here's my version of cream cheese frosting. It was good because it wasn't overly sweet, but the cream cheese wasn't overpowering either. It made plenty of frosting, so you'll have some leftover.

Cream Cheese Frosting

2 pkgs. cream cheese, at room temperature
1 1/2 (ish) sticks of butter, at room temperature
4 t. vanilla
4 c. (ish) powdered sugar

Cream the cream cheese, butter, and vanilla. Gradually add the powdered sugar until smooth. Frost the cake while the frosting is at room temperature.

Enjoy! And leave a comment if you try it! :)

1 Year, 3 Months, 3 Days...

...that's exactly how long it's been since I last blogged.

Sad, although I don't know how much I've missed it - or been missed. Obviously, it hasn't been a priority, and frankly, I don't know that there would've been much exciting to post! Oh, there's been some fun times and my nephews are absolutely exciting, but other than that, it's life as normal - work, church, friends, singleness. All four have been good in the last year, but there's also been struggles with all four. Overall my thirtieth year of life on earth was not my favorite year, in fact, probably one I'd like to forget. While it was certainly a year of growth, we all know growing typically comes out of trials, and there were plenty of those!

But enough of that. One thing I did in my thirtieth year was embrace the art of homemaking. I've always enjoyed cooking, sewing, and doing all the things of the home, but in my singleness I put it aside, dreaming of the day I'd do it for my family. When I turned 30, I realized it was time to stop putting it aside, and instead, put it into practice. So, for my 30th birthday I bought myself a gift - the longed for KitchenAid Stand Mixer - and not just any one, but the professional model in beautiful granite grey! Then, in the fall, I scored an amazing deal on a never used Singer sewing machine. Since then I've worked on small projects such as burp cloths and cookies to big projects like farm playhouses and made-from-scratch cinnamon rolls. And I have loved every minute. I think God knew I needed to dive into those hobbies as they have provided rest, relaxation, creativity, and a safe retreat in an otherwise melancholy year for me.

With that, as my skills sharpen, I'd like to share my projects. I read several sewing blogs and am so inspired by them! The sewing world is so different from the days of going to Joann's and flipping through pattern books. And while I'm not quite skilled enough to create my own clothing, I'm having fun learning and experimenting by reading the blogs and tutorials.

Therefore, I don't know what this blog will be exactly, or how much I'll blog! It very well may be a smattering of things - sewing projects, cooking/baking experiments, or just the ordinary daily life events. I simply desire to document more of my life, not necessarily for the readers of the world wide web (although they are welcome to read!), but for me as I begin to fully embrace the art of homemaking. Yay!

Thanks for reading! And now, for a fun 4th of July baking idea!