Need a Forth of July cake for a get-together with friends? Well, this USA flag cake is sure to impress! In this video we’ll show you how to make a 4th of July themed cake with a flag inside the cake. It looks tricky, but I promise that it’s not when it’s broken down into my simple steps. You’re going to LOVE this cake, so lets get baking!
How to Make an American Flag Cake
Items used in this video:
– 2 (9″ round) red vanilla cakes see our recipe here- http://youtu.be/XaNELscDtms
– 1 (9″ round) blue vanilla cake
– white butter cream see our recipe here- http://youtu.be/rjqOTM5icOE
– blue colored buttercream
– red colored buttercream
– 104 Wilton tip with piping bag
You will need to bake your cakes, and get your buttercream ready. Take one of your red cakes, and slice it into 3 equal layers. Layer a thick layer of buttercream between each cake layer and build upwards. Taking you blue cake layer, cut a hole out of the middle (the one I cut was about 2/3 the diameter of the cake. Remove the center and discard or save for cake pops! Using the same measurement as was used in the 2/3 cut of the blue cake, cut the center out of the remaining red layer. This time, you will keep the center of the red layer, and cut it into 3 equal layers. Attach the blue cake onto the stacked red cake and buttercream layers, then fill in the center of the blue cake, by alternating with buttercream and red cake layers. You can decorate the outside of the cake however you want, and if you’re interested in what I did, I used a 104 Wilton Tip in three colours and used the ribbon technique to finish off the cake.
I told you it would be easy! Reading the instructions may be overwhelming, so definitely give watching the video a shot!
Happy Baking and Happy Forth Of July to all my family and friends in the States!
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Thanks for your wonderful instructions and video! I made this for a young man for his birthday today with the outside decorated as Captain America’s shield. I hadn’t told them about the inside of the cake. Just as she was slicing it, one of the young party-goers asked, “What kind of cake is inside?” Trying to get slices cut as fast as possible, she said, “It’s American cake.” The look on her face was priceless as she plated that first piece of “American cake.” lol!
That’s so wonderful!!
Hi Jenn… I love your videos and watch them all the time & I’m finally going to make one of you creations. The only thing I’m concerned about is the amount of buttercream I will need. So exactly how much buttercream will I need to use. Thank you for the wonderful creation and I hope to see many more.
I made this once for my daughters birthday treat at school and am making it again for her birthday party. It was a huge hit. Kids loved it And I loved making it. She says her favorite color is American flag (can you get more patriotic?) love this, thank you. I’m going to try and use your recipe for vanilla cake this time instead of boxed!
So 1 and a half of your white cake recipes makes three 9 inch layers, correct?
I guess you could think of it that way…. my vanilla cake recipe makes 2 cakes. So, one and a half of the recipe should yield you three layers, but you never know exactly how things will work out when you are doubling (etc) a recipe.
Thank you so much for posting this! I know my family will LOVE it!!!!
I hope they enjoy it!
hi, Jenn i am a beginner baker and my dream is to be as good as you.I have tired the raindow truffles but i mess up at everything i bake can you give me some tips?
and for the tips can i buy the tips and put it into a ziploc bag
Ziplock bags are not strong enough (IMO) for piping with. Some people use them and like them, but I do not.
Without knowing what you’re doing wrong, there is not much I can do to offer for help. Practice, practice, practice!
I can’t seem to find your butter cream recipy
Here you go: http://cookiescupcakesandcardio.com/?p=2696
I am going to make this for the 4th of July and I wanted to know if I could just use a Ziploc bag and cut off the end and not use the 104 petal tip. To get the red color and blue color it is ok if I use food coloring if I can’t find any gel color? I’m just going to have to use a lot of it right? Hope to hear from you ^-^
Hi there….you can use ziplock bags if you prefer as you can decorate the cake however you want to. Food colouring will make your icing runny if you add too much of it, so be aware of that. To thicken the icing back up, add more icing sugar. Good luck.
Well I found the gel coloring to that shouldn’t be a problem and thank you 🙂
Hi jenn,
I’m from holland and I study the bilingual program on my school and for the end of the year I want to make this cake for my class. How much buttercream do I need to make? I don’t want to make the pattern of buttercream so only for in between and to cover it….
Gr vivian
Still waiting for a reply…….
Here is a chart from Wilton that shows cups of batter, temp and also buttercream amounts. If you plan on doing any decorating always do more than recommended, I tend to do a full extra batch in case. I’d rather have too much than not enough, it can always get stored in the fridge for later use.
The link would be helpful lol
http://www.wilton.com/cakes/making-cakes/baking-serving-guide.cfm
I’m sorry – I’m not Jenn – but I figured I could help. 🙂
I made this today and it took quite a bit of frosting ;). This is the recipe I used this recipe and I just barely had enough – you might want to add a little more to it. 🙂
1 cup of butter
3/4 cup powered sugar (give or take to taste)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 teaspoons heavy cream (optional)
Half-and-half or milk to thin as necessary
Remember to whip well!
Best of luck,
Gil
At what degrees does the oven need to be and how long do they need to bake for?
How long does the American Flag Cake for the 4th of July.
What kind of food coloring did you use, does the gel food colorings work better? and do you think if I use the 1-2-3-4 cake recipe it would come out fine?
I use Americolor gel pastes as they are super vibrant. I don’t know what the 1-2-3-4 cake recipe is, but it sounds interesting!!
my 7yr old daughter wants to make this with me, how do I get the cake blue, red ?
I will be using box batter so what do I do?
Hi Robert…all you have to do is mix up the cake according to directions, and then separate it into bowls. In one bowl add red colouring, and in the other bowl add blue colouring. You will probably need 2 boxes to get the 3 layers of cake needed.
I have been watching this over and over. I am a beginner at this and am excited to try this. I went out and bought the (hopefully) beginnings of my baking tools and accessories. I hope I can get mine to turn out like yours! Wish me luck! I bought box white cake today but am planning to make your buttercream for the icing. Is it okay that I just have tips and piping bags? I see in the video you use the connectors too. I am so nervous but exited to try. I want to make lots of creations. I know my family (hubby and 3 kids) wouldn’t mind testing it all for me! LOL!
Yes, you don’t necessarily need the couplers, they just make it possible to change tips for the same icing. Good luck!!
I am really happy I found your website it is FANTASTIC! I looked a the Fourth of July Cake and it is great. I do have some questions. First I have the vanilla cake recipe when I saw the 9″ pan you put the cake in it doesn’t seem like you could get 3 layers from it so do you use like a 9″ x 3″ cake pan. How many recipes of cake would I have to make. and the coloring how much do I have to put in the cake batter?
Same goes for the frosting. About how many recipes will I need to make for the cake and about how much food color do I use in the frosting? Thank you for having such a wonderful website.
I use a double recipe sometimes (I usually have a ton of batter to start with as I’m baking for other things too)…you’ll probably want 1.5 batches of the cake…my cake pans are 9″x2″. The frosting amount depends on how you want to ice it…I used probably a double batch. If I ever run out, I just make more. If you’re using Americolor you only need about a teaspoon of it…it depends on how vibrant you want the colours to be. Good luck!