4th of july 2011

we went over to our friends the kramers to celebrated america day. george and i had our garb on, him a USA mens soccer kit and i wore my america shorts. red, white and blue shorts i had gotten at anthropologie years ago, i only wear them once a year and it's on america day.

i decided that i would make a cake, aside from beer, burgers and hot dogs, what better way to celebrate independence than cake?! well, there is this.

i decided to give this a shot. it was actually pretty easy, the assembly of the 3 colored cakes wasn't that bad once i had a visual idea of what i was cutting. the only thing i would have changed would have been the cake recipe, the one i used was on the dry side and it was very crummy. i was low on vanilla extract so i used more almond, i think it tasted pretty good.

thanks iphone

here is a visual on how to cut the layers. i had a 4 inch round cutter that i used, make it super easy.

white cake recipe
adapted from here

makes 2, 8 or 9 inch round (double the recipe for flag cake). all ingredients should be at room temperature.

8 table­spoons (1 stick) unsalted but­ter
1/2 cup vegetable shortening
1 table­spoon bak­ing powder
1 3/4 cups sugar
3/4 tea­spoon salt
1 tea­spoons vanilla extract
2 tea­spoon almond extract
5 large egg whites
2 3/4 cup cake flour
1 cup milk

pre­heat oven to 350 degrees F. pre­pare cake pans, set aside.
combine the flour, salt, baking powder in a separate bowl.
In a mix­ing bowl, cream together the but­ter and short­en­ing until incor­po­rated and light in color. add the sugar slowly and continue to mix until light in color and fluffy. add fla­vor­ings. add the egg whites, one at a time, it should be light and fluffy by this time.

incorporate the flour and alternating with the milk, add about 1/3 of the flour, and then 1/3 of the milk. continue like this ending with the flour.

divide the batter into 3 bowls. add red food coloring to one, blue to the other and leave one white. you may need a lot of red to get the right color, sometimes a tiny bit of black can help achieve this. pour into prepared cake pans and bake for 25-30 min, depending on your oven. you will probably have some batter left over. no biggie, make a few cup cakes.

when done, let cool 10 min­utes on a rack. remove from pans and fin­ish cool­ing on a rack. when com­pletely cooled, wrap in plas­tic wrap and store flat in fridge.

cream cheese frosting
3 (8oz) pack of cream cheese or neufchatel
1 stick (4oz) softened unsalted butter
2-3 cups powdered sugar depending on sweetness and consistency you want

cream the cream cheese and butter until combined. Gradually add in the powdered sugar until the desired consistency/sweetness is reached.

can be kept covered in fridge for 1 week.