How to top last 4th of July?

Last 4th of July was my first blog!!
And still one of my favorites. 
If you think back a whole year you'll remember that I made red, white, and blue pies.
This year I am still making something pie-ish for my dad but the Pièce de résistance is going to be a layer cake with a secret surprise.

It has a flag inside!
No not a literal fabric flag . . . the image of a flag in cake!

I kinda want to take full credit for this idea, as i did think of it all on my own. 
But when I googled it of course it already existed.

For the flavors of the cake I went all American.  Plain white cake with Butter cream icing.

I wanted it to be true to the actual flag design (i.e. exactly right # of stripes).
Unfortunately I didn't make enough blue cake so I am missing a few stripes.  Oh well . . . . we'll just have to ignore some of those southern states.

Here's how you make it . . . .

Basic White Cake

3 1/2 cups flour

2 cups sugar

1 Tablespoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1  cup unsalted butter, softened

6 large eggs whites plus 2 whole large egg

1 cup sour cream

2 teaspoons vanilla

1 teaspoon almond

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line four 8" pans with parchment. 
2. Mix all of the dry ingredients.
3. Add butter and mix until evenly crumbly.
4. Add the egg whites one at a time, then the whole egg, beating well after each addition
5. Separately whisk the sour cream with the vanilla and almond extracts. Add this mixture, 1/3 at a time, to the batter. Beat 1 to 2 minutes after each addition, until fluffy. Be sure to scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl.
6. Divide batter into 4 equal amounts.  Dye 3 parts red and one blue.
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7. I added white chocolate morsels to the blue to act as the "stars"

8. Divide batter among prepared pans.  Make one of the three reds 1/3 higher then the other two.  This will be explained in the assembly section.
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9. Bake for 25 minutes then cool on a rack.
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Butter cream 

• 2 sticks of butter
• 1 cup of plain Crisco
• 6 cups of confectioners sugar
• 1 tsp clear vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp almond extract

1. Cream together butter and Crisco.

2. Add extracts.
3. Add sugar one cup at a time until fully incorporated.

4. Refrigerate until ready to use.

Assemble the cake
This is the fun part.

Robby made me a fabulous diagram of a flag for me to follow.

To make a truly accurate flag you need to have 7 layers of red cake. 
That means you need to cut 2 of the cakes in half and one of them into 3rds.  (If you remember back to the cake portion you made one red cake higher then the others.  This is the one you should divide in 3.)

 

 



Start by layering one red cake on a plate.  Cover with butter cream. 
(The butter cream acts as the white stripes.)



 

Continue layering until you have 3 red and 3 white layers, per diagram above.

 



Next cut the blue cake in ring segments and place them around the outer edge of the cake.

(no pic waaa waa)

 

Then cut the remaining red layers to size so that they fit in the center hole of the blue cake.

You should have 4 red and 3 white layers.  Again, my blue cake wasn't high enough so I only ended up with 2 more red and white layers.

 

(no pic booooo)

 

Cover the entire cake in butter cream.

 

Decorate as desired.

 

 



I was discourage that I miscalculated the blue. 
I really wanted it to be an accurate flag.  
In the end though, I think it came out great.

I also make these apple hand pies, bc it was also my dad's birthday (on the 3rd . . .63) and he loves apple.

 

 

To make these you just make a typical pie dough and pie filling (only dice the apples instead of slice).

 

Arrange filling on dough like this:

Then drape another dough layer on top like this:

Then just cut em up and bake em (425 for 30 minutes)

 

Happy 4th!!!