Christmas Notebook

As we were celebrating the Fourth on Monday the 5th, with the Independence Day parade and fireworks in the evening, I made a special dessert for the occasion.

How cool is that?? I found the idea and the recipe for the frosting on Elissa’s blog 17 and Baking. She attributes the idea to her father.

After browsing several recipes, I used this recipe for white cake and it was delicious. I had to triple it to make three round cakes. I made it all at once and it worked fine.

You can see complete directions for assembling the cake on Elissa’s blog. But basically, you cut the red layer and the white layer in half horizontally. Leave the blue layer intact for now.

Stack, from the bottom, a white layer, a red layer, and the blue layer. For this stack, I chose the red and white layers with the worst looking edges because the outer part of these will not be used in the flag cake. Though you can save them to assemble an oddly colored short cake.

Cut a hole down the middle of the stack, using a serrated knife.

You end up with this.

To assemble the whole thing, it stacks like this: white layer on the bottom, red layer next, then the blue ring, frosting between each layer. Spread a layer of frosting inside the blue ring around the edge of the cut. Then slide in the center, which is the center of the red and white layers that you cut.

That will leave you with a blue circle cut from the center and two rings…a white one and a red one. You can stack and assemble these to make a cake that will be opposite in color composition and will have only one white stripe and one red one…but that way, it doesn’t go to waste. Or you can do what I did. Leave the leftover cake and the leftover frosting on the counter and watch it disappear!

The finished cake makes a great surprise when you cut into it. I didn’t tell the kids what it was going to be. They thought I was making a red, white and blue layer cake. I wish you could have seen their eyes when they saw the flag on their plate! They ran for their cameras! 😀

The only problem I had was with the frosting. It seems too runny, so I added more powdered sugar to stiffen it. It worked fine. I did put the cake in the fridge until serving because I was afraid the layers might slip if it were left on the counter in the warm kitchen.

A fun cake to make, and though it seems it might be hard to assemble when you read the directions, it isn’t hard at all. It’s very easy! This will probably become a Fourth of July tradition for our family. 🙂 Thank you, Elissa and Elissa’s Dad!!

~~Rhonda 🙂