Happy Birthday America Cake aka Exploding Flag Cake
This cake is by no means gourmet, but it sure can add some psychedelic fun to your 4th of July celebration! The ingredients on the back of the cake box didn’t seem decadent enough, so I fattened it up a bit. If you’re feeling deluxe, use your favorite from-scratch white cake and fluffy white or cream cheese icing.
Note: You will need a hollow star shaped cookie cutter (or a good eye) to make the star.
Duncan Hines Moist Deluxe White Cake Mix
3 eggs
1/3 cup cream
1 cup water
2 tablespoons butter, softened
red and blue food coloring
red and blue sprinkles
2 tubs of white fluffy frosting
flour
oil
cherries and candles (we used the long sparkler-type) for additional flair
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Grease two 8 inch cake pans and dust with flour.
Blend dry mix, water, cream, butter and eggs with an electric mixer for 30 seconds on low speed. Beat an additional 2 minutes on medium speed.
Divide the batter evenly into three bowls. Add several drops of blue food coloring (20 or so) to one bowl of batter, mixing completely. Add several drops of red food coloring to a different bowl of batter, mixing completely. You should now have 3 bowls of batter: one red, one white and one blue.
Drop spoonfuls of each batter into both pans in alternation until the batter is evenly distributed. If you want a more marbleized cake, use the handle of a spoon to trace circles or zigzags through the batter.
Bake on the center rack for 25-35 minutes. Remove the cakes from the oven when a toothpick poked into the center comes out clean. Let cakes cool completely.
Meanwhile, divide one tub of frosting evenly into two bowls. Add red food coloring into one bowl until the desired redness is achieved. Transfer the other tub of frosting into a bowl and add blue food coloring until the desired color is achieved. You should now have a large bowl of blue frosting, a small bowl of red and a small bowl of white.
Once the cakes have cooled, Flip one onto a serving plate. Frost the top of it with red frosting. Note: To prevent the blue and red icing from blending, take care not to apply the red frosting all the way to the edge of the first cake.
Cover with red sprinkles. Flip the second cake on top.
Place a star shaped cookie cutter in the middle of the cake. Frost the sides and the top of the cake with blue frosting, all the way up to the cookie cutter. Fill cookie cutter with white frosting. Remove the cutter so that a white star remains. Or just eyeball it. If you star looks fat and sloppy, use a toothpick to drag the white frosting into sharp points.
Decorate cake with blue sprinkles. To avoid sprinkling the star, use a folded piece of cardboard to shield it.
Garnish with cherries and sparkler candles.
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