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! :)
