The Flag Cake

In hopes of getting our house out of a funk and into some holiday cheer I started searching the internet for fun 4th of july ideas. I came across this cake at http://glorioustreats.blogspot.com.

I thought it looked like a fun and challenging project, so using the tutorial here I set out to make it.

Here's what you need:
2 boxes white cake mix
food coloring in red and blue
white frosting
plus eggs, oil, etc to follow the cake directions

Heres what you do:
Mix up the cake mixes one at a time. Tint the first batch red and bake in two 9" rounds.

Mix up the second batch and split it in two. Tint one half blue and leave the other white. Don't do what I did and think you can mix green and yellow to make blue. I swear I know that doesn't make blue. But I was out of blue and didn't want to run to the store. But of course it only made an ugly green so I had to send Dan to the store to get blue. Your blue will probably look much better than mind since I layered it over green :( Bake the blue and white cakes in 9" rounds.

Now here's the part where I had trouble. You are going to cut each red cake in half horizontally so you have four circles. Set one circle aside you only need three. Keep two whole and the other you are going to cut a 4" circle out of. (I just traced around a small bowl with my knife) You can set aside the outer circle, we don't need it.

Then you are going to cut the white cake in half horizontally to end up with two white circles. Leave one whole and cut a small circle out of the other just like with the red one. Again, set aside the outer circle.

You should now have 2 large red circles, 1 small red circle, 1 large white circle and 1 small white circle.

Now we are going to cut a small circle out of the blue cake and set it aside. We want the big circle with the hole cut out. You can set aside the inner circle, we don't need it.

At this point I realized I didn't have any white frosting so I ran to Walgreens, who only had chocolate. I continued my quest across the street at CVS, who also only had chocolate. I bit the bullet and took on Walmart where I bought 4 cans. Just in case. I only needed three.

Now it's time to layer:

large red circle on the bottom
icing
large white circle next
icing
another large red circle
icing
large blue circle with hole in the middle
icing (and around the inner edge of the hole)
inside the blue circle you are going to layer first the small white circle, some frosting, and then the small red one.

The last step is to frost the whole cake and decorate. I made a simple design with some strawberries I had on hand.

Then hold your breath and cut open your cake!

Hopefully it looks like this!!

All in all, it wasn't nearly as hard as I thought it would be. And it tastes wonderful! Definitely worked to get us in a patriotic mood!

Happy 4th of July everyone!