Flag Cake

Where to begin? Two sisters, two trips to the grocery store, two batches of cake, two crazy dogs and two very long days later.....finally, a Flag Cake!

I went home for the Fourth of July, and my sister and I wanted to bake something for the occasion. Strawberry stripe cakes with Blueberry stars: cute but expected. Cutting into this cake: a flag, unexpected. Perfect! And if the pattern isn't enough to impress, a hint of almond flavor in this cake is guaranteed to pleasantly surprise your taste buds.

Because this recipe would be extremely long to post I have provided links instead. The process seems intimidating but is really quite simple. I used this recipe for the cake base. Full instructions and cream cheese icing recipe can be found at 17 and baking.

Here are some tips:

When you are cutting the circles, make sure to cut in a completely vertical fashion. Otherwise your blue ring of cake will not be wide enough and there will be a gap between your red and white layers. - if this happens just use the left over blue cake to stuff it into the gaps.

I used the cream cheese frosting suggested by the original blogger although mine did not turn out fluffy like in her picture. It was almost transparent and covering the bright red and blue cake was difficult. I would suggest making a buttercream instead.

Dogs + Car = Disaster:

So I bet youre wondering what two dogs has to do with this cake? We slaved for two days (baked one day, decorated the next). My sister had to drop off our energy surged dogs to my Mother's house before she joined her boyfriend's family for festivities. She did not have time to return home for the cake so she carefully covered it with foil and placed it on the floor on the passangers side of the car. Our dogs (both vizslas) are quite full of life. And to cut to the chase of a long and painful story, Reka (the female) somehow managed to sit on this cake!! FURIOUS! Luckily the cake was salvageable and was re-iced. I now have my dog to thank for the thin red layer at the top. >:-| Despite the mishap the cake got great reviews (there was only one slice left the next day!)

The cake as it was originally decorated: