July 4th Flag Cake Food

4TH OF JULY CAKE

Steps:

• For the cake: Preheat the oven to 350˚. Grease and flour a 17-by-12 1/2-inch sheet cake pan. (Note: this recipe may be halved for a smaller pan, as this recipe feeds an army.)
• In a bowl with a mixer, mix the butter and sugar together on high speed until light and fluffy, about a minute or so. Add the eggs, two at a time. Mix after each addition. Add the sour cream and vanilla.
• In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, cornstarch, kosher salt and baking soda. Turn the mixer to low and gradually add the flour mixture to the butter/sugar mixture, one scoop at a time. Mix after every addition. Keep adding the flour mixture until just combined. Do not over mix!
• Pour the thick cake batter into the prepared pan. (It's much thicker than regular cake batters.) With a knife or offset spatula, spread the cake batter evenly over the pan.
• Bake until a toothpick comes out clean, 20 to 30 minutes. I baked mine for exactly 20 minutes, so you probably want to start checking then.
• For the the cream cheese icing: Add the cream cheese and butter to the bowl of a mixer. Whip to combine. Add the powdered sugar and vanilla. Mix until thoroughly combined, scraping the sides once during mixing.
• Put about ½ the frosting on the cake. Mark off the area of the stars with a toothpick. (No need to be proportionately accurate; just guesstimate.) Prepare a pastry bag with a large star tip and fill up to 2/3 with icing. Fold down both corners to keep icing from splurging out the top.
• Grip the folded-down end tightly under your fingertips and start squeezing two lines of frosting at the bottom of the cake. Make two rows of raspberries on the cake, then add another two lines of frosting.
• Keep repeating: two lines of frosting, two lines of raspberries, two lines of frosting, etc.
• Fill the square in the corner with a nice layer of blueberries. With the star tip, squeeze little dollops of frosting all over the blueberries to look like stars.

FOURTH OF JULY FLAG CAKE

Steps:

• Slice one cup of the strawberries and set aside. Halve the remaining strawberries and set aside.
• Line the bottom of a 12x8 baking dish with the pound cake slices. Top with one cup of the sliced strawberries, 1 cup of the blueberries, then all of the whipped topping.
• Place strawberry halves and remaining 1/3 cup blueberries on the whipped topping to create a flag design. (Strawberries should make 5 red stripes, blueberries should make a square in the top left corner using about 55-60 blueberries).

4TH OF JULY FLAG CAKE

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 375.
• Mix with a pastry blender flour, butter and powdered sugar.
• Push dough evenly onto a baking sheet.
• Bake about 10 minutes or until golden brown.
• Mix powdered sugar, softened cream cheese and cool whip with a hand mixer until creamy and well blended.
• Spread mixture over crust after it has cooled. Reserve a small amount for "stars.".
• Finish with arranging blueberries and strawberries into American Flag. 7 red strips and 6 white.
• Pipe reserved icing as stars over blueberries.

FLAG CAKE

Steps:

• Heat the oven to 350 degrees F.
• Butter and flour an 18 by 13 by 1 1/2-inch sheet pan.
• Cream the butter and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment on high speed, until light and fluffy. On medium speed, add the eggs, 2 at a time, then add the sour cream and vanilla. Scrape down the sides and stir until smooth.
• Sift together the flour, cornstarch, salt, and baking soda in a bowl. With the mixer on low speed, add the flour mixture to the butter mixture until just combined. Pour into the prepared pan. Smooth the top with a spatula. Bake in the center of the oven for 20 to 30 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool to room temperature.
• For the icing, combine the butter, cream cheese, sugar, and vanilla in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, mixing just until smooth.
• Spread three-fourths of the icing on the top of the cooled sheet cake. Outline the flag on the top of the cake with a toothpick. Fill the upper left corner with blueberries. Place 2 rows of raspberries across the top of the cake like a red stripe. Put the remaining icing in a pastry bag fitted with a star tip and pipe two rows of white stripes below the raspberries. Alternate rows of raspberries and icing until the flag is completed. Pipe stars on top of the blueberries.
• I serve this cake right in the pan. If you want to turn it out onto a board before frosting, use parchment paper when you grease and flour the pan.

FLAG CAKE

Steps:

• Slice 1 cup strawberries; halve remaining strawberries.
• Cover bottom of 13x9-inch dish with cake slices; top with sliced strawberries and 1 cup blueberries. Spread COOL WHIP over berries.
• Arrange strawberry halves and remaining blueberries on COOL WHIP to resemble a US flag. Keep refrigerated.

JULY 4TH FLAG CAKE

Steps:

• Make the cake:
• Position a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 350°F.
• Butter the bottom and sides of a 13- by 9-inch metal baking pan and line the bottom with wax or parchment paper. Butter the paper and dust the pan with flour, knocking out any excess.
• In a medium bowl, whisk together the boiling water, cocoa powder, and instant coffee granules until smooth. Whisk in the milk and vanilla.
• In a second medium bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, and salt.
• In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the butter with both sugars and beat on medium until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, and beat on medium until fully incorporated. Reduce the speed to low and add the flour and cocoa powder mixtures in batches, beginning and ending with the flour mixture. (The batter may look curdled.) Pour the batter into the prepared pan, smoothing the top, and bake the cake until a wooden toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean and the cake begins to pull away from the sides of the pan, 35 to 40 minutes. Let the cake cool in the pan on a rack for 10 minutes, then invert the cake onto the rack, remove the wax or parchment paper, and let it cool completely. DO AHEAD: The unfrosted cake, can be cooled, wrapped securely in plastic wrap, and stored at room temperature up to 24 hours, before assembling and serving.
• Make the frosting:
• In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the cream cheese and butter and beat until creamy and smooth, 3 to 5 minutes. Beat in the vanilla extract. With the mixer on low, add the sifted confectioners' sugar in three batches, mixing until fully incorporated. Increase the speed to medium-high and beat until the frosting is smooth. Chill the frosting in the refrigerator for 30 minutes before assembling the cake.
• Assemble and serve the cake:
• Frost the top and sides of the cake with 2 1/2 cups of the frosting. Transfer the remaining frosting to a pastry bag fitted with the star tip.
• Using a toothpick or small knife, outline a 4 1/2-inch-long by 3 1/2-inch-wide rectangle in the top left corner of the cake. This area will be reserved for blueberries.
• Starting with the longer side of the cake that is closest to you, pipe a line of frosting along the top edge of the cake then arrange two horizontal rows of raspberries directly above the line of frosting. Pipe a second line of frosting above the raspberries and arrange two more horizontal rows of raspberries directly above the frosting. Repeat this process two more times, making sure to exclude the top left corner that is reserved for the blueberries. Arrange the blueberries in horizontal rows in the top left corner of the cake.
• Slice and serve the cake immediately or store it, covered securely in plastic wrap, in the refrigerator until ready to serve.